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BOOKS    BY 

EDWARD   HOWARD   GRIGGS 


THE    NEW    HUMANISM     -     -  $1.50  net 

A  BOOK  OF  MEDITATIONS  -     1.50  net 

MORAL  EDUCATION      -    -    - 

THE  USE  OF  THE  MARGIN  - 

HUMAN  EQUIPMENT     -     -     - 

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B.  W.  HUEBSCH 

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The  New  Humanism 


STUDIES  IN  PERSONAL  AND 
SOCIAL    DEVELOPMENT 


BY 
EDWARD  HOWARD  GRIGGS 


SEVENTH    EDITION 


NEW    YORK 

B.  W.  HUEBSCH 

1913 


Copyright  1899 

by 

EDWARD  HOWARD  GRIGGS 


onur 

■JRL 


U   f 


'4  I  3  tu 


CONTENTS. 


I.     The    Scientific    Study  of    The  Higher 

Human  Life, 6 

II.     The  Evolution  of  Personality,       -      -    41 

III.  The  Dynamic   Character   of    Personal 

Ideals, 63 

IV.  The  Content  of  the  Ideal  of  Life,    -      -    83 

V.     Positive  and  Negative  Ideals,   -      -      -  101 

VI.     Greek  and  Christian  Ideals  in  Modern 

Civilization, 119 

VII.     The     Modern     Change     in    Ideals    of 

Womanhood, 143 

VIII.     The  Ethics  of  Social  Reconstruction,    -  173 

IX.     The  New  Social  Ideal, 199 

X.     The  Religion  of  Humanity,      -      -      -  226 


I 

THE   SCIENTIFIC   STUDY   OF 
THE    HIGHER    HUMAN    LIFE 


THE  intellectual  vitality  of  an  epoch  is  deter- 
mined less  by  the  amount  of  accumulated 
knowledge  than  by  the  measure  of  activity 
and  growth  that  is  present.  Certain  periods,  such 
as  the  Alexandrine,  possessing  an  immense  accum- 
ulation of  learning,  have  had  less  intellectual  life 
than  others,  like  the  Periclean  age,  when  men  had 
less  erudition,  but  were  more  awakened  to  the 
hunger  for  truth.  The  possession  of  a  vast  appar- 
atus of  culture  may  be  the  opposite  of  an  inspira- 
tion to  the  intellect  unless  the  creative  spirit  be 
present.  Each  epoch  must  be  fertilized  anew  by 
some  fresh  movement  of  thought,  if  it  is  to  hare 
the  highest  measure  of  intellectual  life. 

It  is  less  important  what  form  this  movement 
takes  than  that  in  some  shape  it  be  present.  In 
the  awakening  of  Asia  through  the  teaching  of 
Buddha  it  lay  in  religion,  as  it  did  in  the  rebirth 
of  Europe  through  the  spread  of  Christianity,  and 
again  in  the  amazing  conquests,  no  less  startling 
intellectually  than  materially,  of  Mohammedanism. 
Art  was  its  sphere  in  the  best  period  of  Greece,  for 
life  itself  was  a  fine  art  to  the  Greeks,  and  even 
philosophy  was  affiliated  as  closely  to  art  as  to 
science.  In  the  Italian  renaissance,  which  connects 
the  modern  with  the  ancient  world,  it  centered 


8  THE   SCIENTIFIC   STUDY   OF 

again  in  art.  Germany,  in  the  same  period,  felt 
the  impulse  most  strongly  in  the  field  of  moral  and 
religious  reform.  In  the  later  French  crisis  it  took 
shape  in  social  and  political  revolution. 

A  great  struggle  for  national  existence  may  help 
to  awaken  the  productive  energies  of  a  period  ;  as 
did  the  contest  with  Persia  for  the  Periclean  age, 
the  struggle  with  Spain  in  Elizabethan  England,  or 
the  revolution  in  America.  The  dominant  force 
may  be  associated  with  many  others,  but  always 
some  new  awakening  of  the  spirit  lies  behind  any 
period  of  great  creative  vitality. 

The  cosmopolitan  character  of  our  own  time,  and 
its  dependence  upon  so  great  a  variety  of  historical 
sources,  makes  the  force  behind  its  spiritual  activ- 
ity singularly  complex.  But  in  its  more  particu- 
larly intellectual  aspects,  we  are  right  in  regarding 
our  period  as  peculiarly  the  epoch  of  science.  It 
is  in  the  new  hunger  to  know  the  objective  truth  of 
things,  in  the  immense  impetus  given  to  the  scien- 
tific spirit,  in  the  fresh  awakening  to  the  inductive 
study  of  the  real  world,  that  the  intellectual  in- 
spiration of  our  epoch  has  centered. 

In  one  sense  this  period  is  specifically  the  nine- 
teenth century,  in  another  it  is  the  whole  intellec- 
tual movement  since  the  beginning  of  the  renais- 
sance. For  although  the  conscious  application  of 
inductive  methods  has  been  vastly  more  complete 


THE   HIGHER   HUMAN   LIFE  9 

and  universal  in  our  century  than  previously,  the 
work  of  the  last  hundred  years  is  only  the  fruition 
of  the  movement  vrhich  began  in  that  marvelous 
rebirth  of  Europe  at  the  close  of  the  middle  ages. 

Not  that  there  was  no  science  before  the  renais- 
sance :  the  notion  that  all  inductive  study  of  the 
world  begins  in  the  fifteenth  century,  or  even  later, 
is  one  of  the  most  unwarranted  superstitions  com- 
monly accepted  to-day.  Not  to  speak  of  the  re- 
markable development  of  Arabic  science,  which 
stands  somewhat  apart  from  the  main  trend  of  the 
culture  of  Europe,  there  are  many  proofs  of  the 
fallacy  of  this  view.  The  reflection  of  the  older 
philosophers  was  based  on  an  immense  amount  of 
observation  and  experience.  If  their  method  of 
exposition  was  deductive  rather  than  inductive, 
so  is  the  characteristic  method  of  exposition  in 
modern  science.  When  Aristotle  studied  the  con- 
stitutions of  a  great  number  of  Greek  and  barbarian 
states,  before  writing  his  political  treatise,  he  was 
even  consciously  carrying  on  inductive  study.  His 
Poetics  and  his  Ethics  are  simply  an  organic  pre- 
sentation of  results  obtained  by  a  keen  analysis  of 
the  actual  conditions  of  Greek  art  and  life.  And, 
most  remarkable  of  all,  portions  of  his  History  of 
Animals  are  unexcelled  examples  of  direct  induc- 
tive and  comparative  study  of  nature.  The  Alex- 
andrine school,  with  the  critical  tendencies  that 


10  THE   SCIENTIFIC   STUDY   OF 

awaken  in  a  cosmopolitan  period,  developed  con- 
sciously scientific  methods  in  many  departments 
of  study,  and  displayed  a  number  of  intellectual 
qualities  that  belong  to  our  own  time.  Even  the 
most  speculative  philosophers  of  the  middle  ages 
never  entirely  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  it  was  the 
real  world  of  man  and  nature  they  were  to  try  to 
understand,  and  at  some  point  they  retained  their 
hold  upon  observation  and  experience.  And  as 
the  thinking  of  the  ancient  and  mediaeval  world 
was  largely  along  the  lines  dealing  with  the  con- 
scious human  life,  some  portion  of  the  facts  to  be 
investigated  was  given  in  the  life  and  experience 
of  the  individual,  as  is  impossible  with  the  data  of 
the  sciences  dealing  with  nature. 

The  intellectual  advance  of  the  fifteenth  and 
sixteenth  centuries  lay  really  in  the  immense  im- 
petus given  to  the  scientific  spirit,  resulting  in  the 
vastly  greater  conscious  application  of  inductive 
methods,  and  in  the  rapid  accumulation  of  accur- 
rate  and  definite  knowledge.  The  significance  of 
the  change  was  tremendous  ;  it  justifies  us  in  say- 
ing that  in  the  period  of  the  renaissance  the 
sciences  were  born  ;  but  the  awakening  consisted 
of  the  rebirth  of  elements  which  had  been  recur- 
ringly  present  in  the  antecedent  history  of  thought, 
rather  than  in  an  altogether  unprecedented  atti- 
tude of  mind  or  method  of  research. 


THE   HIGHER   HUMAN   LIFE  11 

The  application  of  the  new  spirit  and  methods 
was  not  made  at  once  to  all  fields  of  investigation. 
Although  individual  workers  carried  the  new  inspi- 
ration into  widely  different  lines  of  study  at  much 
the  same  time,  still  it  is  possible  to  trace  some- 
thing of  an  orderly  succession  in  the  modern  devel- 
opment of  the  sciences.  The  first  expression  of  the 
new  spirit  lay  very  naturally  in  the  study  of  the 
mechanical  principles  in  the  inorganic  world.  In 
the  middle  ages  the  effort  of  scholastic  thinking 
was  to  work  out  given  doctrines  with  the  most 
accurate  and  logical  distinctions.  Philosophy — 
scholastic  science — was  the  "handmaid  of  religion" 
and  its  chief  function  was  in  developing  and  retin- 
iDg  the  dogmas  of  theology.  Of  all  the  sciences 
in  any  way  connected  with  the  natural  world, 
mathematics,  precisely  because  it  deals  deductively 
with  logical  abstractions  from  nature,  is  the  earli- 
est developed,  and  the  most  logical  and  definite  in 
its  methods  of  thinking  and  in  its  conclusions. 
Thus  Mathematics  attained  in  some  departments, 
as  in  Euclidian  geometry,  practically  a  finished 
development,  when  the  inductive  natural  sciences 
existed  only  in  germ  ;  and  for  the  older  philoso- 
phers mathematics  always  had  a  central  import- 
ance. So  when  the  mediaeval  world  passed  over 
into  the  modern  epoch,  the  awakening  of  the  human 
intellect  to  the  real  world  led  it  first  to  the  accurate, 


12  THE   SCIENTIFIC   STUDY   OF 

logical  distinctions  of  mathematics,  in  their  appli- 
cation to  astronomy  and  physics.  And  with  the 
new  consciousness  of  the  vastness  of  the  mate- 
rial universe,  it  was  the  world  of  the  celestial 
bodies  that  first  dominated  the  imagination  of 
men.  The  stars,  of  all  things  in  nature,  are  the 
one  symbol  of  absolute  immensity.  The  ocean  is 
vast  until  we  have  crossed  it,  the  earth  is  greater 
than  our  imagination  until  we  have  compassed  it — 
then  it  shrinks  in  significance.  But  we  cannot 
compass  the  stars.  They  stretch  out  beyond  our 
widest  imagination,  and  symbolize  to  us  with  ever 
new  impressiveness  the  vastness  of  the  universe. 
Every  step  of  advance  in  our  knowledge  of  the 
world  of  the  stars  extends  the  abyss  between  its 
limitless  reach  and  the  confines  of  our  little  earth. 
Furthermore,  the  superstition  inevitably  connected 
with  awe  in  the  presence  of  immensity,  the  notion 
that  celestial  forces  stream  down  out  of  the  stars 
and  determine  human  destiny,  stimulated  to  the 
highest  degree  the  awakening  human  conscious- 
ness in  its  study  of  the  heavens.  Connected  with 
the  superstitions  of  astrology,  and  second  only  to 
them  in  importance,  was  the  reverence  for  unknown 
and  mysterious  chemical  forces  ;  and  investiga- 
tion in  the  one  field  was  paralleled,  and,  through 
the  feverish  search  for  the  philosopher's  stone, 
was   sometimes  excelled    by  that  in   the    other. 


THE   HIGHER   HUMAN   LIFE  13 

Astrology  is  the  step-mother  of  astronomy,  as 
chemistry  is  the  foster-child  of  alchemy.  The 
reverence  for  the  supposed  influence  of  the  stars 
led  the  mind  to  attempt  the  intelligent  comprehen- 
sion of  the  laws  of  movement  and  change  that 
regulate  the  heavens.  Thus  among  the  first  signifi- 
cant investigations  and  generalizations  of  modern 
science  were  those  in  the  sphere  of  astronomy  ;  and 
Copernicus  and  Galileo  are  early  among  the  greater 
names  in  the  long  roll  of  the  heroes  of  science. 

As  the  interest  in  the  heavens  depended  upon 
their  supposed  infiuence  over  human  destiny,  so 
the  study  of  the  stars  centered  upon  their  relation 
to  our  earth,  and  discoveries  in  the  field  of  geog- 
raphy accompanied  and  sometimes  preceded  those 
in  astronomy.  The  moment  the  fact  is  rediscov- 
ered that  the  earth  is  not  a  fixed  and  central  plane 
or  sphere,  but  a  planet  moving  together  with  others 
about  a  central  sun,  and  regulated  by  the  same 
laws  as  the  other  planets  and  stars,  interest  is 
deepened  in  its  formation  and  history,  and  so 
physical  geography  and  geology  are  born. 

The  study  of  the  history  of  the  earth's  surface 
leads  to  renewed  curiosity  concerning  the  strange 
forms  in  its  crust,  which  are  at  once  like  and  un- 
like living  organisms.  Various  fruitless  and  even 
amusing  speculations  are  thrown  out  concerning 
them,  but  the  moment  it  is  guessed  that  these 


14  THE   SCIENTIFIC   STUDY   OF 

fossils  are  the  bones  and  shells  of  animals  and 
plants  that  once  lived,  the  possibility  of  a  scientific 
study  of  the  history  of  life  is  realized,  and  biology 
is  born. 

The  puzzling  similarities  between  men  and  ani- 
mals, and  the  common  application  to  both  of  many 
fundamental  laws  are  early  seen  ;  but  it  is  long 
before  even  the  most  open  investigators  are  willing 
to  accept  frankly  the  unity  of  the  human  and  the 
animal  world,  and  the  identity  of  many  aspects  of 
man's  life  with  that  of  the  lower  creation.  Isolated 
investigators  insist  upon  these  principles,  but  it  is 
only  when  it  is  conjectured,  and  affirmed  with  evi- 
dence that  is  perplexingly  positive,  that  man  is 
but  one  expression  of  the  great  stream  of  organic 
life,  connected  with  all  other  present  and  extinct 
forms  by  laws  of  descent,  that  the  scientific  spirit 
is  carried  over  with  one  splendid  impulse  into  the 
study  of  humanity,  and  the  humanistic  sciences  as 
such  for  the  first  time  are  born. 

They  are  not  all  born  at  once,  and  successive 
waves  follow  the  first  impulse,  transforming  one 
after  another  the  different  lines  of  study  of  the 
human  world.  As  it  is  not  possible  to  trace  with 
absolute  definiteness  a  successive  development  of 
the  physical  sciences,  so  is  it  in  the  human  sphere ; 
but  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other,  some  order  is 
evident  in  the  creation  of  the  new  lines  of  research. 


THE  HIGHEB  HUMAN   LIFE  16 

The  general  field  of  history,  particularly  in  the 
study  of  political  and  economic  institutions,  was 
the  first  to  feel  strongly  the  new  impulsion  of  life. 
The  eighteenth  century  had  speculated  about  social 
contracts,  and  had  imagined  primitive  men  to  have 
ingenuously  sat  down  together,  and  said,  "Go  to, 
let  us  make  a  state."  From  the  point  of  view  of 
modern  history  these  theories  seem  curiosities  from 
an  antique  world.  The  abstract  speculation  con- 
cerning human  rights  seems  little  less  obsolete 
than  the  theory  of  the  divine  right  of  kings.  In- 
stead of  discussing  how  men  might  have  made  a 
state,  the  modern  student  of  history  investigates 
patiently  all  procurable  data  expressing  early  life, 
and  tries  to  see  how  political  institutions  really 
did  develop  out  of  the  undifferentiated  conditions 
of  primitive  existence.  Instead  of  attempting  to 
write  an  interesting  but  uncritical  story  concerning 
some  past  phase  of  civilization,  the  modern  histor- 
ian presents  the  actual  facts  of  the  period,  with 
evidence  taken  from  its  immediate  expressions, 
and  draws  slowly  and  soberly  the  seemingly  just 
conclusions  from  these. 

As  it  was  more  especially  in  the  field  of  institu- 
tional history  that  this  movement  was  first  felt,  so 
the  associated  science  of  political  economy  very 
early  received  the  regenerating  influence.  In  that 
field  abstract  sx)eculation  was  particularly  strong  ; 


16  THE   SCIENTIFIC   STUDY   OF 

but  to-day,  although  such  speculation  is  seen  to 
have  an  excellent  clarifying  value,  the  science  has 
become  inductive.  The  actual  economic  conditions 
of  corporate  life,  past  and  present,  are  laboriously 
investigated,  and  generalizations  inferred  from 
these. 

Furthermore,  the  field  of  social  history  has  seen 
the  development  of  a  new  science,  whose  signifi- 
cance is  as  great  as  it  is  yet  indefinite.  Sociology, 
rapidly  differentiated  from  the  more  special  politi- 
cal sciences,  has  assumed  the  place  of  the  larger 
study  of  society,  both  in  its  static  and  in  its  dyna- 
mic aspects ;  and  has  at  times  claimed  with  some 
reason  to  be  "the  science  of  sciences."  The 
unique  place  which  it  occupies  at  present  is  due  in 
part  to  temporary  causes.  The  reaction  against 
philosophy,  and  the  emphasis  of  the  need  of  gath- 
ering facts,  with  a  failure  to  appreciate  the  value 
of  the  reflection  that  interprets  them,  has  checked 
the  more  natural  expressions  of  the  latter.  At  the 
same  time,  such  reflection  is  more  needed  when  a 
great  mass  of  intellectual  material  is  being  gath- 
ered together  than  at  any  other  time.  Mere  facts 
are  the  dead  wood  of  the  intellect,  which  the  active 
spirit  must  build  into  the  temple  of  truth.  Some 
appreciation  of  the  relations  of  the  sciences,  and 
of  the  universal  bearing  of  the  facts  discovered  in 
each,  is  necessary  to  the  sanity,  the  value  and  the 


THE   HIGHER   HUMAN   LIFE  17 

order  of  research.  That  is,  philosophy  is  indis- 
pensable to  science,  not  as  a  detached  metaphysics, 
but  as  the  reflective  study  of  the  inter-relations  of 
the  different  sciences,  and  of  the  facts  discovered 
and  accumulated  in  each  of  them.  These  universal 
problems  should  be  approached  only  on  the  basis 
of  the  exhaustive  study  of  at  least  one  science. 
The  present  state  of  philosophy,  and  the  fact  that 
the  philosopher  too  rarely  brings  a  rigid  scientific 
training  to  his  reflection,  has  pushed  sociology 
somewhat  into  the  place  of  the  science  of  sciences, 
a  place  which  perhaps  it  is  not  fitted  to  occupy  for 
any  length  of  time.  In  other  words,  besides  the 
inductive  study  of  human  society  in  its  organic 
relations  and  development,  there  is  to-day,  under 
the  general  name  of  sociology,  a  large  amount  of 
reflective  study  of  the  more  universal  problems 
which  are  present  at  the  bottom  of  all  the  sciences, 
and  may  be  approached  through  any  one  of  them. 
These  lie,  as  Spencer  shows  in  the  chapter  on  Ulti- 
mate Scientific  Ideas  in  his  First  Principles,  as 
close  to  the  physical  sciences,  as  to  those  hitherto 
regarded  as  philosophical  disciplines.  Physics, 
chemistry  and  biology  are  avenues  of  approach  to 
them  as  truly  as  psychology  and  ethics.  Tlie  dilem- 
ma of  freedom  and  determinism  is  no  more  enig- 
matical than  the  problem  of  the  divisibility  of 
matter,   and  the  conception  of  God  is  no  more 


18  THE  SOIENTIFIO  STtTDY  OE 

paradoxical  to  the  human  intellect  than  the  con- 
ception of  an  atom.  In  all  lines  of  investigation 
we  are  proceeding  on  the  basis  of  hypotheses  and 
assumptions  which  iDvolve  unsolved  enigmas,  and 
the  conscious  recognition  of  this  is  necessary  to 
a  right  attitude.  Nothing  could  prove  more  con- 
clusively the  permanent  necessity  for  philosophy 
than  the  present  position  of  sociology.  Those  who 
protest  most  strongly  against  philosophy  almost 
invariably  have  a  metaphysics  of  their  own,  and  in 
such  a  case,  very  naturally  a  cheap  and  unworthy 
one. 

Though  there  are  organic  relations  between  dif- 
ferent lines  of  investigation,  these  are  continually 
being  modified  by  progress  in  the  development  of 
science.  There  can  be  no  such  permanent  classifi- 
cation of  the  sciences  as  Comte  and  others  have 
attempted,  for  the  law  of  evolution  applies  as  fully 
to  their  development  as  to  the  physical  world.  New 
lines  of  study  are  continually  being  differentiated 
out  of  the  old,  and  the  inter-relations  of  all  are 
being  constantly  changed.  These  perturbations  are 
the  necessary  accompaniment  of  the  great  move- 
ment of  the  present,  and  they  should  not  blind  us 
to  its  meaning. 

The  new  spirit  has  been  carried  more  slowly  into 
other  fields  than  institutional  history,  and  in  some 
is  only  beginning  to  be  felt  to-day  ;  but  the  same 


THE   HIGHER   HUMAN   LIFE  19 

principle  applies  everywhere.  Anything  that  can 
be  studied  at  all  can  be  studied  scientifically,  and 
there  is  no  reason  for  trying  to  take  it  up  in  any 
other  way.  For  the  method  of  science  is  simply 
rationalized  common  sense ;  it  consists  in  seeking 
quietly  the  ascertainable  facts,  and  then  soberly 
asking  what  they  seem  to  mean.  Thus  every  ex- 
pression of  human  life  should  be  studied  in  the 
same  spirit  and  with  the  same  inductive  methods 
as  are  applied  to  the  investigation  of  nature. 

The  moral  conduct  of  men  and  the  ideals  inspir- 
ing it  may  be  taken  up  in  this  way,  and  so  give  us 
a  positive  science  of  ethics,  occupied  with  discov- 
ering the  laws  which  actually  do  govern  the  life  and 
development  of  the  individual  in  relation  to  the 
universe.  Instead  of  multiplying  books  of  dry 
speculation  concerning  an  imagined  human  nature, 
we  can  hope  to  come  closer  to  the  concrete  circum- 
stances and  problems  with  which  men  and  women 
really  struggle  in  the  intricately  tangled  web  of 
life.  As  biology  depends  upon  the  whole  range  of 
the  phenomena  of  organic  existence,  so  ethics  in- 
cludes as  its  data  the  entire  body  of  facts  of  the 
higher  human  life,  studied  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  individual,  and  his  life  and  growth  in  har- 
mony with  the  sum  of  things.  Every  fact  of  man's 
action,  every  work  of  art  that  embodies  a  dream 
of  his  spirit,  every  religious  creed  and  observance. 


20  THE   SCIENTIFIC   STUDY   OF 

every  institution  lie  has  built  around  himself, 
throws  some  light  on  the  fundamental  laws  of 
his  life.  These  data  are  not  all  upon  the  same 
plane  of  importance,  but  none  are  insignificant  in 
the  effort  to  discover  moral  laws,  which  are  merely- 
natural  laws  considered  with  reference  to  the  wel- 
fare and  development  of  humanity. 

In  this  manner  all  aspects  of  the  psychical  life  of 
humanity,  in  the  individual  and  in  the  race,  may 
be  studied.  As  we  come  to  understand  the  devel- 
opment of  the  individual  mind,  we  shall  have  a 
genetic  psychology,  no  longer  a  vain  discussion  of 
definitions,  but  a  working  basis  for  education  and 
all  arts  concerned  with  the  development  of  the 
individual.  Furthermore,  every  expression  of 
mind,  personal  or  collective,  is  a  door  through 
which  it  is  possible  to  go  back  into  the  psychical 
life  of  humanity.  The  psychology  of  crowds,  of 
great  movements  of  reform  and  revolution,  of  the 
arts,  of  religion,  will  all  be  included  in  the  future 
study  of  mind. 

So  every  sphere  of  human  existence  may  be  ap- 
proached. The  data  of  the  religious  life,  in  the 
consciousness  of  the  individual,  and  in  the  history 
of  religious  ideals,  beliefs,  rituals  and  institutions, 
may  be  openly  and  inductively  investigated,  and 
give  us  a  science  of  religion.  The  data  of  the 
aesthetic  life,  the  actual  facts  in  the  history  of  the 


THE   HIGHER   HUMAN   LIFE  21 

arts,  and  the  relation  of  creations  of  beauty  to  tlie 
human  consciousness,  may  be  studied,  and  thus  a 
science  of  aesthetics,  whether  called  by  that  name 
'  or  not,  developed.  The  systematized  theories  of  the 
world — one  of  the  most  refined  and  highly  organ- 
ized results  of  the  activity  of  every  epoch — may  be 
taken  up  in  relation  to  the  forces,  social,  personal 
and  intellectual,  which  gave  them  birth.  The  his- 
tory of  philosophy  will  then  come  to  be  one  of  the 
chief  avenues  through  which  the  development  of 
the  human  intellect  mav  be  studied  ;  and  instead 
of  futile  discussion  in  support  or  opposition  to 
each  system,  we  shall  try  to  see  its  significance  in 
the  unfolding  of  thought.  Without  exhausting 
the  list  of  the  humanistic  sciences  in  process  of 
creation  to-day,  these  examples  may  serve  to  illus- 
trate the  principles  involved  in  the  whole  move- 
ment. 

It  will  have  been  observed  that  in  the  list  of 
positive  sciences  there  are  two  main  classes  :  the 
biological,  and  those  dealing  with  the  inorganic 
world.  The  former  class  in  turn  falls  into  two  main 
divisions  :  the  biological  studies  in  the  narrower 
sense,  or  those  dealing  with  the  purely  physical 
aspects  of  organic  life  ;  and  the  psychical  sciences, 
or  those  considering  the  higher  human  life  and 
its  beginnings  in  lower  organisms.  This  classifi- 
cation has  no  relation  to  a  particular  philosophy  : 


22  THE   SCIENTIFIC   STUD"?   OF 

it  holds  as  strictly  on  the  basis  of  naturalistic 
materialism  as  from  any  other  point  of  view. 
Thought,  emotion  and  volition  are  facts  as  much  as 
anything  in  the  physical  world ;  and  every  ex- 
pression of  them  in  the  higher  human  life  may  be 
studied  as  inductively  as  fish  or  fossils. 

There  are,  therefore,  three  imperfectly  separated 
classes  of  sciences  ;  and  the  order  of  their  historic 
development  is  that  of  their  simplicity,  of  the 
exactness  of  their  methods,  and  of  the  accuracy 
and  completeness  of  their  conclusions.  The  sciences 
dealing  primarily  with  the  inorganic  world,  astron- 
omy, physics,  chemistry,  geography,  geology,  etc., 
were,  with  mathematics,  the  earliest  developed, 
and  occupied  as  they  are  with  a  statical  or  mechan- 
ically changing  subject-matter,  it  is  possible  for 
them  to  be  entirely  accurate  and  exact  in  method 
and  results. 

Biology,  dealing  with  a  dynamically  changing 
subject  matter,  showing  the  mysterious  forces  of 
growth  and  reproduction,  can  never  be  absolutely 
exact  in  its  work.  The  movement  of  a  star  may 
be  accurately  predicted,  the  exact  character  of  the 
offspring  of  two  organisms  never  can  be.  The 
resultant  of  two  chemicals  may  be  determined  with 
absolute  definiteness,  but  not  so  the  interaction  of 
the  growing  life  with  its  environment. 

The  same  difference  holds  between  the  physical 


THE  HIGHER   HUMAN   LIFE  23 

and  the  humanistic  sciences.  The  data  of  the 
latter  are  indefinitely  more  complex  than  in  the 
former,  and  the  unpredictable  and  even  incalcu- 
lable elements  are  vastly  greater.  It  is  therefore 
impossible  to  have  the  exactness  of  method  and 
result  present  in  the  physical  sciences.  But  the 
same  fundamental  principles  apply.  Science  is  no 
mystery  ;  it  is  simply  the  effort  to  reduce  facts  to 
laws  and  laws  to  law:  to  pass  from  the  bewildering 
variety  on  the  circumference  of  the  universe,  to 
the  possible  unity  at  the  center.  Considered  ob- 
jectively, in  its  more  primary  sense,  it  is  the  whole 
accumulation  of  organized  and  reasonably  exact 
knowledge ;  and  its  methods  are  fundamentally 
the  same  in  all  departments. 

A  period  of  new  experiment  and  rapid  develop- 
ment is  one  when  mistakes  are  easily  made ;  and 
the  particular  order  in  which  the  sciences  have  de- 
veloped, together  with  the  fact  that  the  humanistic 
studies  are  to-day  in  process  of  creation,  leads  to  a 
number  of  current  errors.  When  biology  was  be- 
ginning to  develop,  a  large  number  of  generaliza- 
tions had  been  worked  out  in  the  mechanical  scien- 
ces dealing  with  the  inorganic  world.  The  result 
was  an  ignoring  of  the  peculiarly  biological  laws, 
and  an  effort  to  reduce  the  phenomena  of  organic 
life  back  to  the  more  universal  mechanical  prin- 
ciples.    The   views   of    Descartes   concerning    the 


24  THE   SCIENTIFIC   STUDY   OF 

automatical  character  of  animal  action,  with  the 
speculations  of  Spinoza  and  others  in  the  same 
period,  are  excellent  illustrations  of  this  tendency. 
But  the  theoretical  application  of  mechanical  prin- 
ciples to  biology  was  not  science,  and  the  new 
study  of  organic  life  developed  exactly  in  propor- 
tion as  men  gave  up  the  arbitrary  transference  of 
the  conclusions  of  mathematics  and  physics  to 
biology,  and  sought  to  study  the  world  of  organic 
existence  independently,  to  discover  its  laws. 

The  progress  of  biology  in  the  present  century 
has  been  so  great  that  there  is  little  danger  of  our 
repeating  this  mistake  to-day.  But  in  the  relation 
of  biology  to  the  humanistic  sciences  a  similar 
error  is  made.  The  application  of  the  scientific 
spirit  and  method  to  the  higher  human  life  is  still 
so  recent  that  our  results  in  that  field  are  but  slight. 
The  relatively  extended  study  of  the  physical 
world  below  man,  and  of  the  laws  of  biological  de- 
velopment, and  still  more  of  the  general  mechanical 
principles  that  relate  to  both  the  organic  and  the 
inorganic  worlds,  over-balances  the  work  done  in 
the  human  field,  and  distorts  the  perspective  in 
which  the  sciences  and  their  respective  contents 
are  seen.  In  such  a  situation,  the  natural  tendency 
is  to  take  the  generalizations  from  the  sciences  more 
extensively  studied,  and  apply  them  in  a  loose 
way  to  those  in  which  we  have  not  advanced  so  far. 


THE  HIGHEK   HUMAN   LIFE  25 

As  the  similar  mistake  hampered  the  early  de- 
velopment of  biology,  so  this  error  limits  seriously 
the  progress  of  humanistic  studies  to-day.  Such 
a  procedure  is  anything  but  science,  though  the 
works  displaying  it  are  full  of  the  phrases  and 
formulae  of  particular  sciences.  On  the  contrary 
it  is  exactly  parallel  to  the  older  theological  dis- 
cussion of  nature,  which  drew  certain  conclusions 
from  the  Bible  and  then  applied  these  dogmatically 
to  the  natural  world.  Each  of  the  higher  classes  of 
science  includes  the  laws  in  the  field  or  fields  below 
it,  together  with  those  present  only  in  its  own 
sphere.  And  in  any  department  the  laws  which 
are  most  important  are  precisely  those  which  are 
revealed  only  by  a  study  of  the  province  itself,  and 
which  are  not  explicitly  present  in  any  lower  range 
of  facts.  The  mechanical  principle  of  gravitation 
applies  as  fully  to  the  organic  as  to  the  inorganic 
world ;  it  helps  to  determine  the  symmetry  in  the 
bodies  of  living  organisms  as  truly  as  it  holds  the 
stars  in  their  courses.  But  to  attempt  the  explana- 
tion of  the  biological  world  by  the  application  of 
this  and  similar  mechanical  principles  to  it,  would 
be  to  fail  entirely  to  see  those  laws  of  growth  and 
reproduction,  of  heredity  and  variation,  of  the 
evolution  of  adaptations,  which  are  in  every  re- 
spect the  most  significant  in  the  biological  field. 
If,  similarly,  we  attempt  to  explain  the  world  of 


26  THE   SCIENTIFIC   STUDY    OF 

higlier  human  activities  by  a  mechanical  applica- 
tion to  it  of  the  laws  which  are  found  in  a  study  of 
the  lower  physical  world,  we  fail  to  see  the  very 
laws  which  are  most  significant  in  the  human 
sphere.  The  biologist  of  an  earlier  period  was 
obliged  to  say  to  the  physicist  that,  although  fund- 
amental mechanical  laws  apply  everywhere  in  the 
organic  field,  when  we  are  dealing  with  the  "act- 
ing and  reacting  self"  that  forms  the  subject- 
matter  of  biology,  we  have  a  material  presenting 
activities  involving  new  laws  and  principles,  which 
are  just  those  of  greatest  importance  in  the  bio- 
logical field.  So  the  student  of  the  higher  human 
life  to-day  must  say  to  the  biologist  that,  although 
the  general  laws  of  organic  existence  apply  every- 
where to  humanity,  they  are  inadequate  to  the  ex- 
planation of  the  spiritual  world.  If  our  study  of 
human  thought,  emotion  and  will  is  to  be  truly 
scientific,  we  must  take  up  independently  the  facts 
in  the  new  sphere,  with  a  full  recognition  of  the 
truth  that  the  most  significant  laws  there  will  be 
those  only  dimly  prophesied  on  a  lower  plane  of 
evolution,  and  revealed  in  their  full  significance 
ouly  in  the  world  of  the  higher  activities  them- 
selves. 

Not  only  are  we  inclined,  in  taking  up  a  new 
field  of  investigation,  to  carry  over  ready-made 
conclusions  from  other  sciences,  but  the  first  gen- 


THE   HIGHER  HUMAN   LIFE  27 

eralizations  in  the  new  field  are  almost  always 
hasty  and  ill-considered.  The  first  result  of  the 
discovery  that  the  facts  can  be  reduced  to  law  is  a 
very  narrow  formulation  of  the  laws.  As  this  is 
inevitable  and  natural,  so  it  need  not  be  harmful  if 
the  limitations  be  consciously  recognized.  In  that 
case  the  generalizations  are  made  but  tentatively, 
as  a  temporary  classification  of  the  field  to  furnish 
a  basis  for  further  investigation.  The  primary  im- 
pulse to  philosophy  is  the  hunger  for  unity.  That 
is,  the  main-spring  of  the  intellectual  life  is  the 
need  to  organize  into  a  rational  universe  the  count- 
less impressions  which  enter  the  spirit  through  all 
the  doors  and  avenues  of  relation  between  it  and 
the  world.  In  so  far  as  a  conscious  intellectual  life 
is  developed  each  must  construct  a  philosophy  for 
himself.  As  the  universe  he  builds  in  his  soul  is 
never  an  exact  and  adequate  copy  of  the  universe, 
so  his  sytem  of  philosophy  is  never  the  absolute 
truth  of  things.  It  is  necessary  and  right  that  he 
should  build  it,  for  it  is  a  basis  upon  which  he  may 
live,  a  form  in  which  the  spirit  may  grow  for  a  time. 
But  every  experience  must  change  the  aspect  of  the 
whole,  as  every  step  up  a  mountain  widens  the 
horizon  in  all  directions ;  and  therefore  if  his 
system  is  not  to  crystallize,  and  become  a  limita- 
tion instead  of  an  aid,  it  must  be  kept  fiuid,  and 
must  change  with  his  growth.     As  the  chief  value 


28  THE   SCIENTIFIC   STUDY   OF 

of  formulating  a  creed  is  to  pass  beyond  it,  so  the 
main  significance  in  consciously  organizing  one's 
system  of  philosophy  is  to  go  beyond  it  to  a  larger 
view  of  the  sum  of  things. 

Thus  if  the  organized  system  be  not  only  hasty, 
but  be  accepted  as  final,  it  becomes  a  hampering 
form,  suppressing  growth  and  destroying  the  quiet 
vision  of  the  whole.  If  the  necessary  and  eagerly 
desired  unification  of  experience  be  attained  at  the 
expense  of  its  vitality  and  range,  the  theory  must 
soon  seem  barren  and  inadequate  beside  the  life  it  was 
produced  to  interpret,  and  an  early  reaction  against 
it  is  certain  and  necessary.  So  in  a  new  depart- 
ment of  science,  when  the  principles  first  discovered 
are  dogmatically  assumed  to  be  finally  sufficient  in 
the  classification  and  explanation  of  the  subject- 
matter,  the  result  is  to  dwarf  for  a  time  our  sense 
of  its  significance,  and  seriously  to  hamper  the 
work  of  investigation.  Further  research  is  obliged 
to  protest  strongly  against  the  assumed  finality  of 
the  conclusions,  and  to  show  that  deeper  and  more 
complex  principles  are  required  for  an  explanation 
of  the  facts. 

While  such  a  period  of  hasty  and  rather  dogmatic 
generalization  occurs  in  the  formative  period  of 
many  sciences,  it  appears  in  an  unusual  degree  in 
the  early  development  of  the  studies  dealing  with 
human  activities.     When  it  was  discovered  that  the 


THE   HIGHER   HUMAN   LIFE  29 

facts  of  human  desire  and  action  could  be  reduced 
to  law,  that  vices  varied  with  the  seasons,  and  soil 
and  climate  influenced  moral  qualities  of  national 
character,  it  was  supposed  that  mere  conditions  of 
natural  environment  were  sufficient  to  explain  all 
tendencies  of  human  life.  These  physical  condi- 
tions were  selected  as  being  the  only  stable  and 
permanent  causes,  and  hence  it  seemed  that  in  the 
last  analysis  all  other  apparent  causes  must  be 
reducible  to  them.  In  such  a  theory  of  civilization 
as  Buckle  and  his  followers  developed,  the  hard 
egotism  and  narrow  generalization  of  a  science  in 
its  formative  stages  are  expressed  in  the  endeavor 
to  explain  all  facts  of  human  life,  aesthetic,  emo- 
tional, moral,  by  the  more  permanent  factors — soil 
and  climate. 

With  the  enunciation  of  this  theory  human  life 
seemed  to  be  struggling  in  a  closed  circle  with  no 
hope  of  escape.  Many  students  can  testify  to  the 
profound  depression  which  their  first  acquaintance 
with  these  theories  produced  upon  them.  All  the 
higher  efforts  and  emotions  seemed  to  be  mere  illu- 
sions, the  reality  behind  them  being  the  same  blind 
forces  of  natural  environment.  It  was  a  similar 
reaction  upon  the  theories  of  the  formative  period 
of  political  economy  which  led  Carlyle  to  speak  of 
it  as  "the  dismal  science."  A  half  truth  always 
seems  more  impregnable  than  a  many-sided  view, 


30  THE   SCIENTIFIC   STUDY   OF  ^ 

as  a  liberal  is  always  at  a  disadvantage  in  a  con- 
tention with  a  dogmatist.  The  mathematical  exact- 
ness and  logical  order  with  which  a  narrow  premise 
may  be  worked  out  gives  the  resultant  theory  an 
apparent  completeness  which  seems  to  exclude  all 
possible  opposition. 

But  it  is  the  very  limitations  of  the  theory  that 
give  it  this  seeming  finality  ;  and  with  a  little 
further  study  a  plane  of  vision  is  reached  from 
which  the  closed  circle  of  theory  seems  very  artifi- 
ficial  beside  the  varied  world  it  was  formed  to 
interpret.  To  the  basal  factors  of  natural  environ- 
ment it  is  seen  must  be  added  the  interaction  of 
man  with  his  social  surroundings.  The  peculiar 
organization  of  social  relations  in  any  place,  how- 
ever much  it  may  be  due  originally  to  physical 
conditions,  becomes  in  its  turn  a  determining  cause, 
molding  the  character  of  all  members  of  the  society. 
As  research  goes  on  it  becomes  evident  that  still 
less  calculable  causes  are  present.  The  action  of 
individuals  under  the  influence  of  ideas  is  found 
to  be  dynamic  behind  all  conditions  and  move- 
ments of  society  ;  and  it  is  seen  that  no  understand- 
ing of  history  is  possible  without  taking  account 
of  the  subtle  spiritual  forces  which  find  expression 
through  personality. 

Because  these  higher  forces  have  had  low  origins, 
it  has   been  assumed  that   they   were  reduced   in 


THE   HIGHER   HUMAN   LIFE  31 

significance  to  the  level  of  the  latter  when  these 
were  discovered.  Yet  the  slightest  reflection  should 
serve  to  show  the  fallacy  of  such  a  view.  The 
fundamental  conception  of  evolution  is  the  continu- 
ous development  of  adaptations,  through  changes 
in  function  and  structure  due  to  reaction  upon 
environment.  The  significance  of  a  higher  or  more 
complicated  adaptation  is  not  reduced  to  the  level 
of  a  lower  or  simpler  one  by  showing  that  it  has 
been  evolved  from  the  latter.  The  assumption  that 
when  we  have  shown  moral  sensibilities  and  ideas, 
religious  faith,  and  all  forms  of  spiritual  life  to 
have  antecedent  causes  in  determining  conditions 
of  physical  and  social  environment,  we  have  ex- 
plained away  the  meaning  of  the  higher  activities, 
and  may  entirely  neglect  them  in  our  study  of 
humanity,  is  quite  as  absurd  as  to  argue  that  a 
specialized  structure  has  no  significance  beyond 
that  of  the  simpler  basis  from  which  it  developed. 

If  it  be  true  that  any  fact  is  fully  understood 
only  when  seen  in  the  light  of  its  origin  and 
development,  it  is  equally  true  that  always  it  is 
the  higher  evolved  form  which  throws  light  upon 
the  significance  of  the  lower.  When  we  discover 
that  the  organ  of  sight  has  developed  from  sensi- 
tive pigment  spots  in  the  bodies  of  earlier  organ- 
isms, this  helps  us  to  understand  the  history  of  the 
special  organ  and  function  ;  but  instead  of  reducing 


32  THE   SCIENTIFIC   STUDY   OF 

the  highly  specialized  sense  of  sight  to  the  level  of 
the  pigment  spot  in  significance,  it  shows  how 
marvelous  and  unpredictable  were  the  potentiali- 
ties involved  in  the  latter.  Similarly,  when  we 
discover  that  human  love,  with  all  its  moral  and 
aesthetic  refinement  and  spiritual  consecration,  has 
developed  from  certain  low  and  simple  physical 
tendencies  and  instincts  present  in  the  remote  his- 
tory of  life,  instead  of  degrading  love,  or  lowering 
its  spiritual  meaning,  we  have  but  shown  how 
wonderful  were  the  possibilities  of  development 
involved  in  the  simple  instincts  of  primitive  life. 
No  one  from  a  study  of  acorns  could  ever  predict 
or  appreciate  the  majesty  and  beauty  of  an  oak 
tree  ;  and  no  one  by  a  study  of  the  bases  only, 
from  which  the  higher  human  life  has  developed, 
can  appreciate  the  meaning  of  its  moral,  aesthetic 
and  intellectual  activities.  In  whatever  way  these 
are  the  result  of  predetermining  causes,  they  be- 
come in  their  turn  profoundly  important  forces 
with  reference  to  all  subsequent  facts  and  condi- 
tions in  the  human  world.  The  same  law  that 
makes  the  simpler  bases  of  life  full  of  promise  for 
the  spiritual  world,  shows  how  vast  are  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  latter  for  the  development  that  is 
still  to  follow. 

There  is  a  further  mistake,  inevitable  while  the 
scientific  spirit  is  being  carried  over  into  the  study 


THE   HIGHER   HUMAN   LIFE  33 

of  the  difficult  data  of  human  life.  In  the  older 
philosophical  reflection,  beside  much  profound 
insight  and  many  masterful  summaries  of  experi- 
ence, was  a  large  amount  of  very  general  specula- 
tion detached  from  the  concrete  facts  of  the  real 
world.  In  the  effort  to  avoid  this  error,  and  make 
their  work  exactly  and  carefully  scientific,  it  was 
natural  that  early  workers  in  the  intricately  re- 
lated data  of  human  life  should  arbitrarily  narrow 
the  field  of  their  work,  especially  where  they  were 
incapable  of  a  large  and  organic  view.  Such  a 
limitation  of  the  field  is  very  valuable  in  increas- 
ing the  exactness  and  definiteness  of  the  results  ; 
and  is  harmful  only  when  it  becomes  an  authorita- 
tive tradition,  accepted  by  subsequent  investigators 
with  superstitious  reverence.  This  has  happened 
in  the  case  of  several  of  the  humanistic  sciences  to 
their  long  continued  detriment. 

It  is  well  illustrated  in  some  phases  of  the  new 
psychology.  When  the  effort  was  made  to  study 
the  infinitely  difficult  problems  of  mind  in  a  care- 
ful and  discriminating  way,  in  harmony  with  the 
general  movement  of  science,  it  was  helpful  to 
limit  the  investigation  to  the  relatively  simple 
(though  in  fact  extremely  difficult  and  complex) 
data  of  psycho-physics.  But  when  this  becomes 
an  accepted  tradition,  and  the  enclosed  field  is 
dogmatically   affirmed   to   be  the   only  sphere   of 


34  THE   SCIENTIFIC   STUDY   OF 

psychological  science,  and  when  those  who  call 
themselves  scientists  can  look  with  aversion  and 
contempt  upon  the  effort  to  carry  the  inductive 
method  into  the  study  of  the  genetic  development 
of  the  individual,  and  into  the  larger  problems  of 
social  psychology,  then  such  arrogant  spirits  are 
toiling  aimlessly  up  a  blind  alley,  and  need  to  stop 
and  climb  up  and  over  their  self -erected  enclosing 
walls,  to  readjust  their  perspective. 

In  a  similar  way  the  study  of  literature  was 
limited  for  a  time  to  the  use  of  it  as  a  store-house 
of  words  for  the  science  of  philology.  But  while 
the  latter  will  always  hold  its  place,  there  is  no 
reason  why  the  scientific  spirit  should  not  be  carried 
into  the  study  of  literature  as  the  most  universal 
of  the  arts,  and  therefore  one  of  the  highest 
and  most  interpretative  expressions  of  humanity. 
Every  literary  creation  is  as  revelatory  of  the  man 
and  the  epoch  that  produced  it  as  a  shell  is  of  the 
character  of  the  organism  it  once  contained  ;  and 
there  is  no  reason  why  the  one  fact  should  not  be 
studied  in  the  same  quiet  inductive  spirit  as  the 
other.  And  deeper  than  the  temporary  forces  are 
the  essentirJ  elements  of  human  experience,  which 
form  the  basis  of  every  masterpiece  of  art,  and 
may  be  approached  through  the  earnest  study  of  it. 

So  history  has  been  narrowed  to  the  specialized 
study  of  phases  of  institutional  history.     But  while 


THE   HIGHER  HUMAN   LIFE  85 

political  and  social  institutions  are  most  valuable 
crystallizations  about  life,  which  we  must  always 
study  if  we  are  increasingly  to  understand  the 
past,  there  is  every  need  that  the  same  spirit  and 
method  should  be  applied  to  the  history  of  the 
arts,  of  religion,  of  conduct  and  ideals,  in  the  effort 
to  understand  the  whole  of  human  experience  and 
its  development.  When  teachers  of  historical 
science  can  declare  that  children  are  incapable  of 
studying  history  from  the  sources,  because  they 
cannot  understand  political  documents,  such  as 
constitutions,  treaties,  etc.,  it  is  necessary  to  re- 
iterate the  truth  that  every  expression  of  humanity 
— a  picture,  a  statue,  a  temple,  a  poem,  an  action, 
a  creed,  a  song — is  a  fact,  capable  of  being  studied 
in  the  same  scientific  spirit,  and  by  the  same  in- 
ductive methods  as  any  other. 

Again,  arbitrarily  and  permanently  to  narrow 
the  fields  of  investigation  not  only  limits  the 
results  obtained,  but  perverts  our  view  of  their 
significance.  No  fact  can  be  understood  alone ; 
each  is  meaningful  in  proportion  as  it  is  seen  in 
relation  to  others.  One  of  the  first  lessons  to  be 
learned  in  any  science  is  that  facts  do  not  differ  in 
importance  according  tO  their  mechanical  size,  but 
according  to  what  they  reveal.  It  is  a  small  fact, 
and  a  very  common  one,  that  apples  fall  to  the 
ground  ;    but  when  the  intellect  of  a  Newton  is 


36  THE  SCIENTIFIC  STUDY  OF 

focused  upon  this  it  is  seen  to  be  one  expression  of 
the  law  that  holds  the  stars  in  their  places,  and 
rounds  the  dewdrop  on  the  petal  of  a  flower. 
Tennyson  was  right  in  saying  that  if  he  could 
know  the  "little  flower  in  the  crannied  wall" 
"root  and  all,  and  all  in  all"  he  would  "know 
what  God  and  man  is  "  ;  for  the  flower  is  bound 
absolutely  to  two  worlds  :  by  its  physical  structure 
and  history  to  the  material  universe,  and  by  its 
beauty  and  meaning  to  the  world  of  the  spirit. 
Every  widening  of  the  horizon  of  vision  changes 
the  relation  of  all  the  elements  contained  within 
it,  and  only  "under  the  aspect  of  eternity"  can 
the  facts  of  time  be  understood.  The  more  nearly 
we  approach  the  universal  point  of  view,  the  more 
closely  may  we  approximate  the  true  interpretation 
of  the  facts  of  life.  The  particular  phases  of  his- 
tory can  be  understood  only  when  they  are  regarded 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  larger  history  of 
civilization.  The  particular  expressions  on  the 
circumference  of  life  can  be  appreciated  in  true 
relation  only  when  we  see  them  from  the  common 
center  from  which  they  spring. 

The  whole  progress  of  science  hitherto  has  made 
it  easy  for  us  to  fail  to  see  this  truth ;  for  every 
step  of  the  rapid  advance  in  our  knowledge  of  the 
external  universe  has  temporarily  diminished  the 
apparent  significance  of  the  human  spirit.      The 


THE   HIGHER   HUMAN   LIFE  37 

universe  was  small  to  the  man  of  ancient  Greece  or 
JudsBa.  The  earth  was  the  center  and  man  its  lord; 
the  sun  and  the  stars  existed  to  light  his  path. 
When  modern  astronomy  showed  us  that  our  earth 
is  relatively  but  an  infinitesimal  atom  of  matter,  off 
in  a  corner  of  the  universe,  the  immediate  effect 
was  to  lessen  immeasurably  the  sense  of  the  im- 
portance of  human  life.  One  who  looks  through 
the  telescope  at  the  nebula  of  Orion,  and  attempts 
to  imagine  the  solar  systems  upon  systems  which 
might  be  made  from  it,  and  then  stops  to  think  of 
the  masses  of  such  nebulae  that  fill  vast  spaces  of 
the  heavens,  is  overwhelmed  with  the  sense  of  the 
relative  insignificance  of  human  life. 

To  the  ancients  man  had  a  brief  history  of  a  few 
thousand  years,  all  of  which  might  be  known  with 
reasonable  accuracy ;  and  animal  and  plant  life 
was  but  little  if  any  older.  Modern  biology  shows 
us  that  the  period  in  which  man  has  existed  upon 
the  earth  reaches  back  from  twenty  thousand  to 
one  hundred  thousand  years ;  and  the  countless 
ages  of  biological  history  extending  behind  this 
almost  paralyze  the  imagination,  and  make  us  feel 
that  the  historical  period  of  humanity  is  so  brief 
that  we  may  practically  neglect  it  in  considering 
the  great  laws  of  life. 

It  is  only  when  we  return  to  the  point  of  view  of 
the  human  spirit,  and  consider  the  facts  of  man's 


38  THE   SCIENTIFIC   STUDY   OF 

life  from  within  the  forces  that  have  produced 
them,  that  we  realize  again  the  infinite  significance 
of  humanity.  Then  we  return  to  the  anthropocen- 
tric,  which  is  the  religious,  point  of  view,  and  see 
that  the  deepest  of  the  mysteries  is  man.  Vaster 
than  the  reach  of  suns  and  worlds  in  space  is  the 
mind  that  can  conceive  these  as  bound  by  one  law; 
more  worthy  of  wonder  than  the  aeons  of  existence 
are  the  momentary  expressions  of  love  and  justice 
from  human  hearts.  Kant  worthily  said :  ' '  Two 
things  fill  the  mind  with  ever  new  and  increasing 
wonder  and  veneration,  the  more  often  and  steadily 
we  reflect  upon  them  :  The  starry  heaven  above 
me  and  the  moral  law  within  7?ze."  And  of  the 
two,  it  is  the  spiritual  within  us  to  which  we  re- 
turn in  the  last  resort  of  science  and  philosophy. 

The  virility  of  the  epoch  of  science  is  not  yet  ex- 
hausted; rather  the  carrying  of  its  spirit  and 
methods  into  the  study  of  the  higher  human  life 
promises  vastly  more  than  has  been  accomplished 
Mtherto.  The  "chief  study  of  mankind"  must 
always  be  "man."  It  is  human  life  that  is  end- 
lessly interesting  to  us, — more  so  than  anything 
else  in  the  universe.  Though  particular  conditions 
in  the  world  of  thought,  such  as  have  been  present 
in  this  century,  may  make  other  sciences  more 
fruitful  than  the  study  of  humanity,  and  give  them 
the  place  of  leading  and  fertilizing  the  intellectual 


THE   HIGHER   HUMAN   LIFE  39 

life,  still,  when  equal  skill,  openness  and  conse- 
cration are  carried  over  into  the  study  of  the 
human  spirit  and  its  expressions,  these  must  prove 
more  vital  to  us  than  anything  else.  And  then  we 
may  hope  to  see  the  facts  of  life  in  their  broad 
relation,  and  appreciate  the  meaning  of  human 
experience  as  has  never  been  done  in  the  past. 


11. 

THE   EVOLUTION    OF   PERSONALITY 


IT  is  the  unity  of  human  experience  that  makes 
possible  a  progress  in  civilization  as  well  as 
an  understanding  of  history.  Were  mankind 
not  gathered  up  anew  in  each  individual,  a  particu- 
lar phase  of  life  would  develop  and  die,  detached 
from  the  past  and  sterile  for  the  future  ;  but  in 
reality  each  is  fundamentally  united  with  all  the 
rest.  We  can  read  Homer  because  the  childhood 
of  Europe  is  present  in  our  hearts  ;  Aeschylus  and 
Sophocles,  Praxiteles  and  Phidias  are  intelligible 
to  us  because  their  creations  are  possibilities  of 
our  lives.  All  study  of  history  tends  to  deepen 
our  consciousness  of  the  unity  of  the  human 
spirit,  as  it  enlarges  us  to  a  fuller  comprehension 
of  the  world. 

Yet  no  single  expression  of  human  nature  ever 
exhausts  the  whole.  Its  infinite  possibilities  may 
be  imagined  in  God,  but  are  never  realized  in  any 
man,  or  any  group  of  men.  It  is  this  that  gives 
the  exhaustless  interest  to  life :  each  phase  em- 
bodies some  hitherto  unexpressed  potentiality,  and 
its  peculiar  lesson  is  not  adequately  taught  by  any 
other.  Human  history  is  not  unlike  the  external 
world,  where  a  few  simple  elements  have  found 
expression  in  the  measureless  variety  of  forms  in 
nature.     Some  epochs  are  lifted  into  the  si:)lendid 


44  THE   EVOLUTION   OF   PERSONALITY 

isolation  of  mountain  peaks,  lofty,  but  bare  and 
sterile  for  the  future :  others  are  like  low  and 
fertile  valleys,  unimposing  in  appearance,  but  re- 
ceiving the  deposits  of  alluvial  soil  which  nourishes 
the  germs  of  a  future  civilization.  Here  are  dark 
forests  of  doubt,  infested  with  the  beasts  of  sin  ; 
and  there  the  open  sunlit  plains  of  great  achieve- 
ment. Here  are  black  storms  of  unloosed  hate, 
and  the  fitful  lightning  of  revolution ;  there  is  the 
quiet  sunshine  of  faith,  or  the  star-sown  night  of 
rest  and  peace. 

As  the  changes  of  nature  display  a  certain  order 
among  the  bewildering  variety  of  individual  forms, 
so  is  it  with  human  progress.  Wave  movements 
of  the  spirit  occur  which  cause  some  periods  to 
resemble  others  in  fundamental  character,  though 
different  in  concrete  life.  Through  the  succession 
of  actions  and  reactions  growth  is  discernible 
toward  more  inclusive  and  integrated  expressions 
of  life,  as  well  as  toward  higher. 

As  the  conception  of  evolution  has  been  primary 
among  those  dynamic  ideas  which  have  performed 
the  masculine  function  of  impregnating  modern 
thought  and  causing  it  to  give  birth  fruitfully,  so 
all  study  of  civilization  to-day  is  dominated  by 
some  conception  of  progress.  Without  asking 
whether  there  is  a  true  advance  in  history,  it  is 
taken  for  granted  that  certain  phases  of  life  are 


THE   EVOLUTION   OF   PEESONALITY  45 

higher  than  others.  Yet  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  very  biological  science  that  has  given  us  our 
notion  of  development,  what  right  have  we  to  use 
the  terms  higher  and  lower  with  reference  to  the 
objective  facts  of  life?  What  is  meant  by  a  higher 
adaptation  except  one  that  is  more  highly  special- 
ized and  integrated  ?  What  reason  is  there  to 
regard  a  man  as  higher  than  a  protozoan  ?  The 
latter  in  fact,  as  far  as  permanence  of  existence  is 
concerned,  has  an  adaptability  that  makes  it  prac- 
tically immortal,  where  the  individual  human 
being  is  destroyed  by  the  failure  of  any  one  of  a 
series  ^f  intricately  developed  activities  and  rela- 
tions. Yet  arguments  against  the  view  that  man 
is  distinctly  higher  than  the  protozoan  are  invari- 
ably regarded  as  humorous  and  unworthy  serious 
attention.  We  are  content  to  assume  the  fact  of 
an  evolution  from  lower  to  higher  forms,  and  to 
regard  man  as  the  highest. 

I^  we  try  to  answer  the  question,  why  this  assump- 
tion is  so  universally  made,  we  are  always  carried 
back  into  man's  consciousness,  and  are  forced  to 
confess  that  higher  and  lower  are  categories  of  the 
human  spirit,  which  are  taken  from  the  subjective 
world  and  applied  to  nature.  Nor  does  this  invali- 
date them,  any  more  than  the  discovery  that  the 
mind  is  no  mere  blank  tablet,  but  is  active  in  all 
the  process  of  knowledge,  invalidates  science.   The 


46  THE   EVOLUTION   OF   PEKSONALITY 

whole  content  of  human  experience  depends  upon 
the  categories  of  the  spirit ;  in  practice  they  are 
universally  accepted  ;  and  we  must  come  to  recog- 
nize this  fact  with  its  intellectual  consequences. 
We  know  that  the  life  of  love,  the  hunger  for 
truth,  the  devotion  to  ideals,  the  reverence  for  prin- 
ciples, are  higher  than  anything  in  the  physical 
world. 

Thus  progress  can  be  understood  only  from  with- 
in the  forces  and  tendencies  of  human  life ;  for  it 
consists  finally,  not  in  an  external  advance  which 
can  be  measured  by  material  standards,  but  in  the 
development  of  the  individual  soul.  History  shows 
a  progressive  evolution  of  personality,  both  in  the 
conscious  freedom  of  action,  and  in  the  depth  and 
content  of  life. 

The  attention  of  philosophers  has  been  so  ab- 
sorbed by  the  metaphysical  question  of  freedom 
that  usually  they  have  failed  to  see  the  gradual 
development  of  practical  freedom  that  can  be 
traced  historically.  The  action  of  the  living  organ- 
ism steadily  increases  in  importance,  as  compared 
with  the  stimulus  of  environment,  in  all  the  up- 
ward progress  of  life.  In  the  beginning  organic 
existence  is  more  or  less  passively  and  uncon- 
sciously determined  by  the  action  of  external  con- 
ditions; in  the  highest  phases  these  are  increasingly 
molded  by  the  conscious  and  intelligent  will. 


THE   EVOLUTIOlsr   OF   PERSONALITY  47 

In  the  inorganic  world  the  laws  determining 
structure  and  motion  are  merely  mechanical  and 
chemical.  The  formation  of  a  crystal,  the  shape 
assumed  by  a  cooling  and  hardening  body  of  mat- 
ter, the  path  of  revolution  of  a  planet,  are  all 
determined  by  simple  mechanical  principles.  Be- 
tween these  and  the  modes  of  activity  of  the  lowest 
organic  life  is  an  unbridged  chasm.  In  the  unicel- 
lular organism,  swimming  about  in  a  drop  of  water, 
dimly  sensitive  to  surrounding  conditions,  capable 
of  dividing  into  two  independent  organisms  to 
meet  better  the  conditions  of  existence,  uniting 
with  another  into  a  single  new  life  when  the  pro- 
toplasmic hunger  reaches  a  certain  point  of  inten- 
sity— here  the  activity  of  the  living  being  is  of  vast 
importance  in  determining  the  character  of  life. 

The  theory  propounded  by  Cope,  that  all  vital 
functions,  as  digestion,  respiration,  the  circulation 
of  the  blood,  began  in  dimly  conscious  efforts  of 
the  organism,  has  much  to  support  it.  If  true,  this 
only  gives  us  a  new  sense  of  the  importance  of  con- 
sciousness among  the  forces  determining  physical 
structure  and  function.  We  know  that  conscious 
action  is  being  continually  transformed  into  un- 
conscious in  the  individual,  thus  leaving  the 
mind  free  for  higher  and  higher  efforts.  A  baby 
spends  months  in  the  endeavor  to  control  and  use 
the  muscles  necessary  to  walking  ;  the  man  walks 


48  THE   EVOLUTION   OF   PERSONALITY 

automatically,  and  can  spend  his  conscious  mental 
power  on  other  things.  The  growing  freedom  of 
the  individual  mind  thus  depends  on  continuously 
relegating  to  lower  nerve-centers  functions  that  be- 
come habitual.  If  a  similar  process  has  taken 
place  in  the  history  of  the  race,  it  is  another  ex- 
pression of  the  actual  growth  of  practical  freedom 
throughout  the  past. 

Each  step  in  the  progress  of  organic  life  is  a  new 
advance  in  the  control  of  its  environment  by  the 
organism.  A  better  adaptation  is  always  in  some 
way  a  freer  and  more  active  use  of  surrounding 
conditions.  The  successive  development  of  diges- 
tive system,  muscular  structure  and  nervous  or- 
ganization, ending  in  the  controlling  and  direct- 
ing brain,  increases  immeasurably  in  each  step  the 
significance  of  spontaneous  action.  An  animal  that 
can  move  about  from  place  to  place,  seek  its  food 
and  struggle  against  its  enemies,  has  attained  an 
extensive  control  of  the  conditions  of  existence ; 
and  yet  even  savage  humanity  is  far  above  this 
plane.  Every  invention  is  an  instrument  through 
which  the  human  will  reaches  out  toward  the 
mastery  of  nature ;  and  indeed  the  use  of  tools  is 
sufficient  alone  to  account  for  the  supremacy  of  man 
over  other  animals.  Taking  only  the  discovery 
and  use  of  fire,  and  the  invention  of  the  bow  and 
arrow :  these  make  it  possible  for  man  to  live  on 


THE   EVOLUTION   OF   PEKSONALITY  49 

portions  of  the  earth  previously  uninhabitable,  to 
increase  vastly  the  range  and  utility  of  his  food, 
and  to  struggle  against  brute  adversaries  of  much 
greater  muscular  strength. 

It  is,  however,  through  association  with  others, 
and  the  development  of  social  organization,  that 
the  most  wonderful  advance  in  the  freedom  of  the 
human  will  is  evident.  As  soon  as  it  becomes  pos- 
sible for  man  to  appreciate  the  pleasure  or  suffer- 
ing of  another  as  in  some  degree  his  own,  and  to 
realize  the  interdependence  of  his  life  with  others, 
social  institutions  begin  to  develop  ;  and  these  are 
the  most  powerful,  as  they  are  the  most  refined,  of 
all  tools  through  which  the  masterful  human  will 
is  expressed.  Tne  control  of  brute  forces  in  any 
civilized  society  is  so  comprehensive  and  universal 
that  we  take  it  for  granted,  and  are  not  amazed  by 
it  except  in  some  unusual  step  forward.  It  is 
strange  what  miracles  we  accept  in  the  routine  of 
our  daily  lives,  with  a  pride  in  our  power  that 
makes  us  even  forget  that  indeed  they  are  miracles. 
Nearly  all  the  material  equipment  of  life  is  acces- 
sible in  every  center  of  civilization.  We  can  pass 
rapidly  and  easily  from  place  to  place,  and  the 
events  of  all  the  world  are  told  to  us  on  the  day  in 
which  they  occur.  The  continents  are  bound 
together  by  cables  under  the  sea,  the  iron  fingers 
of  the  railway  clasp  the  lands  in  one,  the  lace-work 


50  THE   EVOLUTION   OF   PERSONALITY 

of  wires  stretches  across  prairie  and  mountain, 
resting  on  the  poles  planted  everywhere  as  the 
universal  crucifix  of  science.  Civilized  man,  by 
setting  up  social  organization  on  a  new  portion  of 
the  earth's  surface,  is  able  in  large  measure  to  de- 
termine the  character  of  his  environment,  and  to 
bring  to  his  home  the  production,  not  only  material, 
but  aesthetic  and  intellectual,  of  all  the  ages  of 
human  life.  The  extension  of  experience  through 
the  heritage  of  culture  makes  it  possible  to  extend 
the  relations  of  the  personality  in  time  as  well  as 
in  space,  and  thus  to  share  the  thought  of  those 
who  lived  long  ago,  and  by  participating  in  the 
ideals  of  humanity  even  in  a  measure  to  anticipate 
the  unborn  future  that  is  to  be. 

When  we  pass  from  the  purely  mechanical  laws 
governing  in  the  inorganic  world,  to  the  intelligent 
and  free  activities  of  the  higher  human  life,  we  have 
two  extremes  between  which  lies  the  process  of 
organic  existence.  Freedom,  spontaneity,  the 
conscious  control  of  environing  conditions  by  the 
intelligent  will,  steadily  increase,  and  promise  to 
go  on  developing  indefinitely. 

This  process  gives  that  progressive  emancipation 
of  the  individual  which  is  the  most  significant  key 
to  moral  advance.  From  an  entirely  materialistic 
point  of  view  Letourneau  says  :  "If  now,  proceed- 
ing in  the  manner  of  the  God  of  the  metaphysicians, 


THE   EVOLUTION   OF   PERSONALITY:  61 

for  whom  all  the  past  ages  are  but  a  moment, 
we  attempt  to  sum  up  in  a  brief  formula  the  slow 
progress  accomplished  by  poor  humanity  in  its  long 
voyage  in  search  of  the  better,  we  may  say  that  the 
entire  social  evolution  is  nothing  but  a  gradual 
emancipation  of  the  individual,  in  his  spirit  and  in 
his  body."  If  such  a  statement  can  be  made  from 
the  point  of  view  of  physical  science,  how  much 
more  significant  is  it  when  the  intellectual  and 
spiritual  activities  of  humanity  are  considered  from 
within. 

This  emancipation  of  the  individual  is  accom- 
panied by  a  deepening  of  the  content  of  personal 
life.  How  spiritually  barren  is  primitive  exist- 
ence :  the  form  of  the  personality  is  present,  but 
its  content  is  merely  a  few  simple  and  blind  in- 
stincts momentarily  expressed  or  thwarted.  And 
how  marvelously  this  is  deepened  and  enriched  by 
the  evolution  of  the  spirit.  The  blind  impulse  of 
sex  becomes  the  world  of  mysterious  forces  gathered 
up  under  the  name  of  love.  The  brute  reactions  of 
egoism  and  the  unconscious  instincts  of  altruism 
become  the  maze  of  spiritual  forces  and  ideals  that 
move  the  intelligent  will  to  moral  action.  The 
simple  perception  of  material  relations  immediately 
bearing  on  physical  existence  becomes  the  strange 
and  awe-inspiring  reach  of  the  mind  and  the  im- 
agination, which  gathers  up  the  remotest  star-dust 


62  THE   EVOLUTION   OF   PERSONALITY 

in  the  synthesis   of  law,  and  binds  together  the 
aeons  of  existence  in  one  intelligible  process. 

The  inventions  which  free  man  from  the  control 
of  environment  serve  equally  to  enrich  the  content 
of  his  life.  Each  step  in  the  external  mastery  of 
nature  means  the  taking  up  into  his  spirit  of  some 
added  portion  of  the  universe.  In  museums  of 
sculpture  and  painting,  and  in  the  great  archi- 
tectural creations  of  the  ages  is  an  immense  store- 
house of  forms  expressing  the  dreams  and  aspira- 
tions of  all  the  epochs  of  culture.  Through  contact 
with  them  the  individual  soul  is  inconceivably 
enriched  and  deepened.  A  few  pages  covered  with 
hieroglyphics  is  the  connecting  link  between  some 
inspired  artist  of  a  past  epoch  and  his  inheritor 
to-day.  And  the  latter  can,  by  playing  upon  the 
human  and  other  instruments  which  his  genius 
may  command,  transform  the  pages  of  symbols  into 
a  swelling  sea  of  music  that  sweeps  the  hearer  out 
upon  its  flood-tide  of  emotion.  Books,  those 
strangest  of  all  marvels,  bridge  the  centuries  and 
cross  the  chasms  of  space.  Through  the  letters  on 
the  printed  page  we  may  look  back  into  the  life  of 
the  man  who  wrote  it,  and  share  in  the  spiritual 
activities  of  his  time. 

Thus  limitlessly  the  process  of  deepening  the 
content  of  the  inner  life  may  go  on,  the  progress 
being  ever  toward  an  inclusive  humanity  summed 


THE   EVOLUTION   OF   PERSONALITY  53 

up  in  the  individual  soul.  The  form  of  the  person- 
ality remains  much  the  same,  apparently  ;  but  the 
universe  that  is  built  into  it,  the  content  of  the 
personal  life,  grows  increasingly  deeper  and  more 
intricate  as  it  becomes  more  inclusive. 

Both  aspects  of  the  evolution  of  personality  :  the 
emancipation  of  the  individual  in  thought  and 
action,  and  the  progressive  deepening  of  his  life, 
are  expressed  in  all  forms  which  embody  the  higher 
human  experience.  Painting,  which  once  dealt 
wholly  with  religious  or  mythological  subjects, 
to-day  pictures  for  us  common  life,  or  the  nature 
world  in  which  we  find  our  deepest  rest  and  peace. 
Religion,  which  was  once  an  institution  of  the 
state,  in  which  a  formal  ritual  was  the  most  import- 
ant element,  is  becoming  more  and  more  the  faith 
and  ideal  of  the  individual  soul.  Morality,  which 
once  depended  upon  hard  and  external  standards, 
is  growing  to  be  an  attitude  of  the  spirit.  In  every 
sphere  the  sacredness  of  each  human  being,  the 
importance  of  the  individual  life,  is  increasingly 
evident  with  all  the  forward  progress  of  the  world. 

Perhaps  nowhere  else  is  this  so  strongly  and 
clearly  expressed  as  in  the  universal  art  of  litera- 
ture. If  we  go  back  to  Aeschylus  and  Sophocles 
we  find  men  mere  puppets  in  the  hands  of  a  domin- 
ating destiny.  Clytaimnestra  and  Agamemnon, 
Oedipus  and  Antigone,  are  beings  ruled  above  their 


64  THE   EVOLUTION   OF   PERSONALITY 

own  will  and  consciousness  by  forces  whose  begin- 
ning lies  generations  behind  in  their  family  or 
national  history.  The  moral  conflicts  in  which 
they  find  themselves  involved,  the  terrible  problems 
that  confront  them,  the  insoluble  mysteries  that 
overpower  their  reason  and  imagination — these  are 
all  due  to  the  struggle  of  ethical  forces  for  which 
the  poor  individuals  are  in  no  large  way  responsi- 
ble. The  subjects  with  which  these  great  drama- 
tists deal  are  not  men  and  women,  not  the  conscious 
and  free  acts  of  individual  human  beings,  but  the 
conflict  of  great  ethical  and  theological  forces, 
which  work  their  way  out  through  the  human 
puppets — the  mere  expressions  of  their  dominant 
power. 

Christianity  brought  a  new  reverence  for  indi- 
vidual human  life,  refined  and  deepened  in  every 
way  the  moral  consciousness  ;  but  still  there  was 
no  immediate  or  complete  emancipation  of  the 
individual.  Mediaeval  Christianity  was  a  vast  insti- 
tution in  which  the  individual  was  a  mere  atom. 
Man,  at  least  in  many  of  his  activities,  lived  for 
the  church,  instead  of  the  church  existing  for  him. 
Sin  and  virtue,  and  especially  the  negative  virtues, 
were  exaggerated  in  the  consciousness  of  humanity, 
and  men  seemed  in  a  new  way  to  be  ruled  by  forces 
of  vast  and  mysterious  power.  The  chance  for 
eternal  life  was  but  a  slight  and  perilous  one  for 


THE   EVOLUTION   OF   PERSONALITY  55 

the  great  mass  of  mankind.  The  culminating 
expression  of  this  epoch  of  growth  and  striving, 
of  moral  struggle  and  aspiration — Dante  in  his 
Divine  Comedy — pictures  with  marvelous  power 
men  and  women  ;  yet  the  object  of  his  study  is  not 
these  characters,  but  rather  the  ethical  forces  of 
sin  and  virtue  which  work  their  way  out  in  human 
lives.  Pathetic,  tender,  beautiful,  terrible  as  Dante' s 
characters  are,  and  often  as  he  loses  himself  in 
them,  his  avowed  aim  is  to  show  the  working  out 
of  isolated  moral  facts.  It  is  this  that  explains 
some  of  the  noblest  paradoxes  of  his  work,  where 
the  poet  masters  the  philosopher,  and  his  response 
to  the  tender  beauty  of  humanity  is  more  powerful 
than  his  didactic  intention.  The  crowning  illustra- 
tion of  this  is  in  that  sublime  canto  glorified  by  the 
shining  womanhood  of  Francesca  da  Rimini.  It 
was  long  before  I  could  explain  the  peculiar  effect 
of  this  canto  upon  me.  Dante's  intention  was  un- 
doubtedly to  show  the  ugliness  of  the  sin,  and 
frighten  the  reader  from  it ;  yet  the  canto  left  one 
with  such  a  sense  of  beauty,  and  of  transfigured, 
tender,  pitiful,  passionate  womanhood,  that  one 
wondered  whether  it  were  not  better  to  be  the  lover 
of  Francesca  in  the  second  circle  of  hell,  than  the 
humble  recipient  of  the  theological  affection  of 
Beatrice  in  the  terrestrial  paradise.  It  is  partly 
inevitable,  for  women  are  better  than  angels,  and 


56  THE   EVOLUTION    OF   PERSONALITY 

the  human '  love  under  the  changing  skies  of  the 
green  earth  is  the  sweetest  we  can  imagine  ;  but  in 
the  main  it  is  because  of  the  passionate,  pulsating 
humanity  of  Dante.  He  taught  a  higher  lesson 
than  he  himself  understood  ;  for  the  whole  charac- 
ter of  Francesca  has  a  larger  meaning  than  the 
particular  action  Dante  studied,  and  in  portraying 
the  woman  he  could  almost  forget  the  didactic  les- 
son of  the  single  deed.  The  final  Divine  Comedy, 
were  it  ever  written,  would  deal,  not  with  isolated 
moral  facts  of  sin  and  virtue,  but  with  the  entire 
working  out  of  individual  souls,  with  the  whole 
complex  content  of  the  experience  of  each,  and  in 
the  maze  of  intricate  circumstances  and  relations 
that  make  up  life.  This  may  be  impossible,  but 
Dante  approaches  it  most  nearly  when  he  forgets 
mediaeval  ethics,  and  creates  universal,  because 
concrete  and  personal  men  and  women.  It  is  here 
as  well  that  Dante  is  most  modern,  not  in  the  sense 
of  what  is  accidental  in  our  time,  but  in  so  far  as 
this  epoch  is  the  culmination  of  the  larger  forces  of 
progress. 

If  we  pass  to  the  beginning  of  the  modern  world, 
we  find  what  was  paradoxical  in  Dante  as  the  very 
warp  and  woof  in  Shakespeare's  garment  of  life. 
His  subjects  are  men  and  women ;  and  these  are  por- 
trayed, not  on  the  background  of  a  possible  future 
world,  but  upon  the  great  and  changing  screen  of 


THE   EVOLUTION   OF   PERSONALITY  67 

time :  and  each  of  these  human  beings,  from  lago 
to  Lear,  from  Lady  Macbeth  to  Helena,  from  Ham- 
let to  Othello,  works  out  the  tendencies  of  his  own 
life,  and  is  dominated  by  the  fate  of  his  own  ac- 
tions, complicated  by  the  environing  conditions. 
The  creed  of  Shakespeare  is  the  creed  of  Nature :  a 
recognition  of  the  inexorable  law  that  every  mo- 
ment used,  unused  or  misused,  which  slips  away 
from  us,  enters  into  the  Destiny  of  our  yesterdays, 
the  Fate  of  our  own  deeds,  arching  over  us  sombre 
or  beneficent,  to  lift  or  blast  us,  according  to  the 
character  of  our  lives. 

And  again  an  enormous  step  has  been  taken  when 
we  pass  from  Shakesj^eare  to  Goethe,  from  the 
study  of  conspicuous  types  of  human  character  in 
the  relatively  brief  treatment  of  the  drama,  to  the 
development  of  the  single  soul  through  all  the 
storm  and  stress  and  play  of  circumstance,  through 
the  changing  relations  of  personal  life,  through  the 
activities  of  the  larger  world,  as  Goethe  has  pre- 
sented this  in  Faust  and  Wilhelm  Meister.  Here 
frankly  the  individual  human  soul  is  taken  as  the 
one  supremely  interesting  thing  in  the  world,  the 
true  microcosm  in  which  are  gathered  up  all  the 
laws  and  principles  and  all  the  meaning  of  the 
great  universe. 

Were  it  possible,  this  is  still  more  completely 
shown  in  the  last    work    of    modern   literature. 


58  THE   EVOLUTION   OF   PEKSONALITY 

Brv/wning,  dramatic  as  is  his  genius,  must  write 
dramatic  lyrics  or  lyrical  dramas,  so  intensely  per- 
sonal is  his  interest,  and  ours,  in  human  life.  And 
Tennyson's  supreme  work  takes  for  its  subject  a 
passage  in  his  own  subjective  experience,  and 
studies  the  larger  problems  of  faith  and  philosophy 
through  the  working  out  of  his  friendship  and  his 
own  suffering.  Have  we  not  come  to  a  relatively 
supreme  emancii^ation  of  the  individual,  at  least  so 
far  as  the  great  literature  of  the  world  is  an  ex- 
pression of  common  life  ? 

The  place  which  the  novel  has  come  to  occupy, 
and  the  fact  that  it  is  characteristically  a  modern 
creation  is  an  added  illastration.  Dealing  as  it 
does  primarily  with  individuals,  in  the  complex 
play  of  circumstances  through  which  the  personal 
spirit  may  find  expression  in  love  and  action,  and 
treating  all  questions,  philosophical,  sociological, 
historical,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  individual 
life,  the  novel  is  a  natural  vehicle  for  an  epoch 
when  the  evolution  of  personality  has  advanced  far. 

Our  interest  is  everywhere  in  the  distinctively 
personal.  Even  in  the  last  century  men  felt  com- 
pelled to  apologize  for  writing  about  themselves  ; 
and  sought  excuses  when  they  did  so  in  the  con- 
nection of  their  lives  with  political  and  social 
movements.  Contrasted  with  this,  the  interest  in 
a  large  portion  of  modern  literature  is  primarily 


THE  EVOLUTION   OF   PERSONALITY  60 

autobiographical.  Men  of  all  classes  and  con- 
ditions feel  tliat  no  excuse  is  needed  for  them  to 
write  about  themselves.  They  realize  quite  simply 
that  the  development  of  a  human  being  is  the  most 
interesting  thing  in  all  the  world ;  and  that  if  they 
can  tell  openly  and  clearly  the  story  of  their  own 
lives,  there  are  many  who  will  find  deep  interest  in 
this.  Let  anyone  look  over  the  list  of  books  issued 
from  month  to  month,  and  count  the  number  of 
those  which  are  in  some  way  autobiographical,  and 
he  will  realize  the  force  of  the  argument.  It  all 
means  simply  a  deepening  consciousness  of  the 
absolute  significance  of  the  individual  soul. 

Morever  both  aspects  of  the  progressive  evolu- 
tion of  personality:  the  emancipation  of  the  in- 
dividual from  the  control  of  external  forces  and 
the  creations  of  his  own  spirit,  with  the  constant 
deepening  and  widening  of  the  content  of  his  ex- 
perience, are  processes  without  end.  There  is  no 
point  at  which  we  can  say  of  either  phase  of  his  de- 
velopment that  it  is  now  absolute  ;  for  the  human 
spirit  is  always  finite  in  actual  life,  infinite  in 
potentiality.  Its  freedom  is  simply  the  measure  of 
spontaneous  self-affirmation ;  and  this  increases 
with  every  added  increment  of  life.  The  universe 
builded  in  the  single  soul  is  finite,  while  there  is 
no  limit  to  its  growth  toward  the  infinite  universe 
in  the  vitality  of  its  content  and  the  range  of  its 
comprehension . 


60  THE   EVOLUTION   OF   PEKSONALITY 

Furthermore,  the  life  of  the  human  personality 
depends  upon  its  growth  :  life  means  growth  in 
life.  It  is  the  new  increment  which  is  added,  or 
rather  multiplied  into  the  old,  which  vitalizes  the 
whole.  We  cannot  be  good  by  yesterday's  action 
or  wise  by  yesterday's  thought  alone.  The  good 
actions  of  the  past  are  so  much  power  to  do  good 
to-day,  but  if  the  capacity  does  not  receive  ever 
new  expression  it  rapidly  deteriorates.  The  ac- 
cumulated knowledge  of  the  yesterdays  is  so  much 
intellectual  power,  but  unless  vitalized  by  new 
thought  and  study  it  quickly  becomes  dead.  The 
struggle  for  existence  is  not  merely  a  battle 
between  species  and  individuals :  the  harsher 
competition  may  end,  but  the  struggle  must 
continue.  It  may  cease  to  be  a  fight  against 
others,  and  become  a  struggle  toward  self-affirma- 
tion, but  in  some  form  it  must  remain.     Truly — 

"  He  only  earns  his  freedom  and  existence 
Who  daily  conquers  them  anew." — 

for  they  are  his  only  while  he  is  winning  them ; 
and  this  is  true  of  every  good  in  life.  One  pos- 
sesses love  only  while  one  is  winning  it,  thought 
while  one  is  thinking  it,  virtue  while  one's  will  is 
finding  expression  in  self-affirming  and  helpful 
action. 

It  is  significant  that  this  view  of  life  is  coming 
to  consciousness  to-day,  when  the  deepening  and 
freeing  of  personal  life  is  so  great.     Goethe  makes 


THE   EVOLUTION   OF   PEESONALITY  61 

it  the  theme  of  Faust  and  Wilhelm  Meister,  as  it 
was  the  inspiring  principle  of  his  own  life.  Brown- 
ing expresses  it  everywhere  :  Jt  gives  Rabbi  Ben 
Ezra  his  exultant  acceptance  of  old  age  with  its 
new  lesson,  and  his  fearless  facing  of  death.  It  is 
behind  the  optimism  of  Abt  Vogler,  and  the  ring- 
ing faith  of  David's  song  in  Saul : 

"  J  will  ?— the  mere  atoms  despise  me !  Why  am  I  not 

loth 
To  look  that,  even  that  in  the  face  too  ?    Why  is  it 

I  dare 
Think  but  lightly  of  suchimpuissance?  What  stops 

my  despair  ? 
This ; — 'tis  not  what  man  Does  which  exalts  him, 

but  what  man  Would  do!" 

And  in  the  Death  in  the  Desert  we  are  told : 

"  God  is,  they  (beasts)  are, 
Man  partly  is  and  wholly  hopes  to  be." 

There  is  at  once  depression  and  endless  inspira- 
tion  in  this  conception  of  life  :  depression  to  realize 
that  no  achievement  is  final,  that  no  thing  can 
satisfy  us ;  inspiration  to  feel  that  qnqvj  point  of 
attainment  is  a  vantage  ground  from  which  we  may 
go  on  to  a  loftier  effort,  to  see  the  possibilities  of 
life  stretch  out  limitlessly  beyond  us  and  feel  that 
they  are  ours. 

No  statical  heaven  could  permanently  satisfy  us; 
wearied,  we  might  welcome  it  for  a  time  ;  but  with 


62  THE   EVOLUTION   OF   PEESONALITY 

rest  and  renewed  strength  we  should  turn  again  to 
the  green  earth  where — 

"  Vague  outlines  of  the  Everlasting  Thought 
Lie  in  the  melting  shadows  as  they  pass," 

and  where  the  ministry  of  Pain  alternates  with 
that  of  Joy  in  playing  upon  the  vibrating  strings 
of  the  human  heart,  as  the  seasons  succeed  each 
other,  or  the  calm  nights  follow  the  majestic  days. 
And  our  longing  for  this  world  would  be  deeper 
than  that  awakened  by  any  heaven  ever  gilded  by 
the  imagination  of  man.  Buddhism  has  been 
called  "a  religion  of  organized  weariness,"  and 
certainly  the  value  of  its  Nirvana  would  be  as  a 
temporary  resting  place  for  tired  souls.  It  is  life 
we  crave,  and  the  ever  new  affirmation  of  the  spirit 
in  unison  with  another,  that  is  love ;  the  ever 
widening  and  deepening  synthesis  of  the  universe 
in  one  vision,  that  is  thought ;  the  full  expression 
of  the  forces  of  the  spirit  in  growing  action. 

Thus  the  life  of  the  human  spirit  is  a  process  of 
perpetual  becoming,  an  unstable  equilibrium, — it 
is  life  only  while  it  is  growth  in  life.  And  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  spirit,  the  progress  of  his- 
tory is  measured,  not  by  the  spread  of  material 
conquests  or  the  accumulation  of  the  equipment  of 
civilization,  but  by  the  transformation  of  the  uni- 
verse into  the  life  of  the  spirit,  by  the  progressive 
emancipation  of  the  individual,  and  the  deepening 
and  widening  of  the  content  of  his  personal  life. 


111. 

THE  DYNAMIC  CHARACTER 

OF 
PERSONAL  IDEALS 


BECAUSE  of  the  progressive  evolution  of  per- 
sonality, the  forces  of  the  spiritual  world 
are  increasingly  present  behind  social  con- 
ditions and  social  progress.  Primitive  races,  living 
under  the  pressure  of  stern  necessity,  were  slowly 
molded  by  a  process  of  remorseless  selection,  which 
worked  through  a  destruction  of  the  least  fit. 
With  the  increase  in  free  and  spontaneous  action, 
the  process  is  gradually  transmuted  into  one  where 
the  primary  force  is  the  intelligent  expression  of 
the  conscious  spirit. 

Variation,  as  yet  unexplained  and  unpredictable, 
is  the  material  upon  which  natural  selection  may 
act,  and  it  occurs  only  in  individuals.  There  is  no 
such  thing  as  the  variation  of  the  species  or  race, 
except  as  the  sum  or  resultant  of  variations  in 
individuals.  It  is  necessary  to  remember  this  fact, 
for  the  tendency  to  be  cheated  by  abstractions  and 
terms  of  classification  is  almost  universal  in  the 
history  of  thought.  It  is  easy  to  see  the  absurdi- 
ties of  the  older  systems  which  display  this  fault, 
as  in  the  Platonic  theory  of  ideas,  or  the  mediaeval 
speculations  concerning  nominalism  and  realism. 
Yet  in  different  form  the  same  error  creeps  into 
much  of  our  own  thinking.  New  abstractions  and 
terms  of  classification  are  personified,  and  treated  as 


66  THE   DYNAMIC   CHARACTER   OF 

if  they  possessed  an  independent  reality.  Church 
and  state,  race,  species,  humanity,  are  discussed  as 
if  they  defined  a  reality  quite  different  from  the 
included  individuals  and  their  relations.  Yet 
there  is  no  life  in  the  whole  except  what  is  in  the 
unit  parts.  In  the  sensible  world  the  only  per- 
manent is  the  process  of  change  itself.  Race, 
species,  genera,  types,  are  not  lasting,  but  evanes- 
cent, while  only  the  succession  of  individuals  with 
changing  adaptations  lasts.  Humanity  can  mean 
nothing  to  us,  unless  it  mean  a  number  of  present 
and  future  individuals. 

The  spiritual  forces  of  history  find  expression 
only  through  personality ;  and  it  is  this  which 
makes  them  as  incalculable  as  they  are  significant. 
Men  act  under  the  inspiration  of  ideas  and  emotions ; 
and  the  countless  actions  of  the  countless  individ- 
uals that  make  up  history  can  never  be  understood 
except  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  forces  which 
are  creative  behind  them. 

Thus  the  world  is  always  resolvable  into  the 
units  that  compose  it,  and  with  the  development 
of  the  freedom  and  content  of  personal  life,  the 
forces  of  history  are  more  and  more  gathered  up, 
not  in  abstract  tendencies  and  principles,  but  in 
the  individuals  that  form  humanity.  Each  man  is 
in  a  way  the  center  of  the  universe,  and  is  con- 
nected by  countless  organic  filaments  with  all  other 


PEESONAL  IDEALS  67 

individuals.  As  we  look  at  such  a  tangled  web  it 
seems  hopelessly  impossible  to  isolate  the  frag- 
mentary thread  of  the  single  life,  without  tearing 
and  destroying  the  web,  or  losing  the  connection 
of  the  thread  with  the  whole  garment  of  life.  But 
we  are  mistaken  in  comparing  the  individual  to 
such  a  fragment :  he  is  not  a  mechanical  element, 
performing  certain  functions,  and  different  in  es- 
sential nature  and  structure  from  all  others,  but 
rather  such  a  unit  part  of  the  whole  as  a  single 
cell,  indeed  a  germ  cell,  is  part  of  the  living  or- 
ganism. This  is  the  significance  in  the  idea  of  the 
microcosm.  The  key  to  the  world  must  always  be 
the  individual ;  only  as  we  read  the  meaning  of  the 
whole  through  the  part  which  each  of  us  is  can  we 
understand  anything  of  the  greater  universe. 

Institutions  are  often  regarded  as  permanent  in 
themselves  ;  but  it  is  only  the  most  external  form 
that  is  slow  to  respond  to  spiritual  forces.  The 
real  vitality  of  the  institution  depends  upon  the 
vibrating  human  heart.  The  entire  spirit  of  a  uni- 
versity may  be  transformed  by  changing  three  or 
four  teachers.  The  whole  meaning  of  national  in- 
stitutions is  altered  by  a  sudden  change  in  the 
temper  of  the  people.  The  only  force  capable  of 
giving  any  institution  a  permanent  vitality  is  the 
constant  presence  of  the  same  spirit  that  gave  it 
birth.     And  when  this  is  present  it  is  working  ever 


68         THE  DYNAMIC  CHARACTER  OF 

toward  higher  results,  so  that  only  while  the  form 
is  growing  better  is  it  good.  When  any  phase  of 
life  ceases  to  advance  it  begins  to  deteriorate. 

The  supreme  importance  of  the  individual  initia- 
tive is  in  the  moral  sphere.  Every  great  moral 
teaching  of  history  bears  the  name  of  some  man : 
this  means  that  the  loftier  ideal  comes  into  the 
world  as  the  higher  consciousness  of  the  one  who 
stands  upon  the  advancing  margin  of  life.  This 
dream  of  the  highest  man,  if  it  be  in  the  line  of 
progress,  becomes  a  force  acting  upon  other  indi- 
viduals, and  by  and  by  is  taken  up  into  the  very 
structure  of  social  life. 

vVere  it  not  for  the  constantly  uplifting  in- 
fluence of  the  advancing  margin,  society  would 
crystallize  into  purely  statical  conditions.  Bacon 
expressed  this  when  he  said  that — ''  111  hath  a  nat- 
ural motion  strongest  in  continuance  ;  but  Good  a 
forced  motion  strongest  at  first."  And  he  adds  in 
the  same  essay  that — "Time  so  moveth  round  that 
a  froward  retention  of  custom  is  as  turbulent  a 
thing  as  an  innovation ;  and  they  that  reverence 
too  much  old  times  are  but  a  scorn  to  the  new." 
That  is,  left  to  itself,  the  world  settles  down  into 
a  mere  crystallized  condition,  in  which  the  pro- 
gress, and  with  it  the  life,  intellectual  and  moral, 
ceases.  To  be  kept  sweet  and  sound  the  waters  of 
life  must  be  constantly  stirred ;  and  this  vitalizing 


PEESONAL  IDEALS  69 

element,  this  forced  motion  of  the  Good,  enters 
into  the  whole  structure  of  society  through  the 
advancing  margin,  that  is,  through  the  highest 
consciousness  and  the  highest  effort  of  those  indi- 
viduals who  are  at  the  front. 

Institutions  are  garments  of  the  spirit,  indis- 
pensable to  its  expression  ;  but  when  these  harden 
down  into  iron  forms,  as  inevitably  they  tend  to  do, 
they  become  a  menacing  limitation  to  the  spirit, 
and  must  be  broken  to  give  room  and  air  to  its 
growing  life.  Then  new  garments  are  woven  by 
the  Protean  Arachne  we  call  the  Time- Spirit,  and 
the  process  is  repeated  over  and  over  again.  If  the 
clothes  can  be  kept  elastic,  the  forms  fluid,  growth 
is  not  menaced  or  hampered,  and  revolution  is  re- 
placed by  evolution.  But  in  the  one  case,  as  in  the 
other,  the  impulsion  of  life  which  breaks  dead 
forms  and  keeps  living  ones  fluid  is  the  reaflirma- 
tion  of  the  personal  will  and  ideal. 

Everywhere  in  human  history  is  an  element  of 
the  unexpected  which  comes  in  to  thwart  our  cal- 
culations. The  power  of  a  great  spirit  to  change 
the  course  of  history  can  never  be  estimated  before- 
hand. Just  at  the  moment  when  the  world  seems 
to  be  settling  into  ennui  and  despair,  Christ's  teach- 
ing vitalizes  it  anew.  When  the  church  seems  to 
be  most  secure  in  its  rule  of  despotic  selfishness 
the  ringing  words  of  a  German  monk  shake  it  to 


70         THE  DYNAMIC  CHARACTEE  OF 

its  foundations,  and  compel  a  reformation  witMn 
as  well  as  without  its  organization.  When  the 
oppression  of  the  aristocracy  seems  most  inevita- 
ble, France  shakes  it  to  pieces  in  the  earthquake 
of  revolution.  It  is  the  forces  of  the  human  spirit 
that  come  in  to  invalidate  the  calculations  of 
selfishness  and  afiirm  the  perennial  vitality  of  the 
heart  of  life. 

A  few  centuries  ago  the  whole  industrial  system 
of  the  world  rested  upon  slavery  ;  even  the  wisest 
men  were  incapable  of  imagining  the  possibility  of 
a  civilization  that  did  not  rest  upon  some  form  of 
servitude.  To  transform  slave  labor  into  free  labor, 
however  beneficial  in  the  end,  involved  diflBlculties 
and  waste  so  great  that  temporary  expediency  was 
inevitably  and  always  opposed  to  it.  Yet  the 
world  has  seen  that  marvelous  transformation, 
resulting  from  the  immediate  affirmation  of  moral 
ideals  of  human  brotherhood  and  freedom.  Can 
the  industrial  history  of  the  world  be  understood 
without  reference  to  spiritual  forces  ? 

As  that  which  is  beyond  the  average  condition 
may  be  in  harmony  with  the  fundamental  laws  of 
life,  but  is  inevitably  out  of  harmony  with  its 
superficial  environment,  so  always  the  leader  in 
thought,  and  still  more  in  moral  life,  receives  some 
measure  of  persecution.  Every  great  moral  teacher 
in  history  has  been  a  heretic,  has  been  in  advance 


PEKSONAL   IDEALS  71 

of  the  traditional  and  conventional  standards  of 
Ms  time.  From  Isaiah  to  Socrates,  from  Christ  to 
Giordano  Bruno,  from  Saint  Paul  to  Savonarola, 
each  has  suffered  for  the  ideas  he  has  advocated. 
We  have  learned  to  do  away  with  forms  of  physical 
torture,  but  the  rack  of  ridicule  and  contempt,  and 
the  lash  of  misunderstanding  are  almost  as  bitter 
for  the  advancing  leader  to  endure  as  the  earlier, 
cruder  forms  of  persecution.  The  man  of  highest 
aims  is  willing  to  pay  this  price  for  the  work  he 
does  in  the  world  ;  and  this  willingness  is  a  partial 
proof  that  his  ideals  are  of  the  advancing  margin 
of  life. 

This  is  the  law  of  the  vicarious  sacrifice  which 
must  always  be  made  by  those  who  are  at  the  front. 
The  world  is  right  in  distrusting  any  variation 
that  has  not  yet  justified  itself  ;  for  the  greater 
number  of  divergencies  from  the  conventional  type 
are  below  rather  than  above  the  average.  But  the 
world  should  give  the  variant  what  is  so  rarely 
acoorded,  the  opportunity  to  justify  itself. 

A  divergence  may  be  in  the  line  of  progress,  and 
yet  be  so  extreme  as  to  remain  inutile  for  the  time 
in  which  it  occurs.  A  Giordano  Bruno  may  be 
born  three  centuries  too  soon,  and  be  comparatively 
ineffectual  in  his  epoch.  Yet  the  force  is  never 
entirely  lost,  and  sooner  or  later  its  uplifting  signif- 
icance must  be  evident.     The  erection  of  a  statue 


72  THE  DYNAMIC   CHARACTER  OF 

to  Bruno  under  the  very  eyes  of  the  Vatican  that 
condemned  him,  and  the  response  of  modern  Italy 
and  the  world  to  his  memory,  shows  that  the  force 
which  was  ineffective  in  the  sixteenth  century  has 
found  its  application  in  the  nineteenth.  The  voice 
of  Socrates  outlasted  the  sentence  of  his  judges, 
and  the  words  of  Christ  upon  the  cross  have  been 
more  powerful  than  a  thousand  edicts  of  Caesar. 
The  cry  of  a  scourged  slave  or  the  wail  of  a  child 
is  a  more  mighty  lever  of  human  destiny  than  the 
arrogance  of  enthroned  oppression. 

Christ  warned  his  followers  what  they  should 
expect  from  the  world  :  "For  so  persecuted  they 
the  prophets  which  were  before  you."  The  world 
has  usually  crucified  its  saviors  and  killed  its 
prophets ;  but  new  martyrs  have  not  hesitated  to 
offer  themselves,  and  the  work  of  progress  has  gone 
on.  Socrates  said:  "There  is  no  danger  of  my 
being  the  last  of  them." 

As  all  moral  systems  bear  the  names  of  individual 
men,  so  do  all  philosophical  systems.  That  is,  the 
higher  intellectual  conception  of  life,  like  the 
nobler  moral  inspiration  and  ideal,  enters  the  world 
through  the  highest  individual.  Thus  the  further 
we  go  in  the  upward  progress  of  humanity  the  more 
absolute  is  the  significance  of  the  personal  ideal  in 
determining  alike  the  statical  conditions  and  the 
dynamic  progress  of    society.      One  cannot  read 


PERSONAL   IDEALS  73 

history  and  ignore  the  enthusiasms  of  the  spirit. 
All  great  movements  of  the  past  consist  in  some 
transformation  of  the  beliefs  and  ideals  of  men. 

The  ideals  of  the  highest  individuals  may  be  the 
dynamic  force  behind  social  progress  because  of  the 
response  to  them  on  the  part  of  other  individuals. 
History  is  by  no  means  simply  the  work  of  great 
men  ;  but  the  making  of  history  is  primarily  de- 
pendent upon  the  dynamic  force  in  all  individuals 
that  can  be  seen  with  striking  clearness  in  the 
great  man.  The  reaction  against  such  a  theory  of 
history  as  found  exalted  expression  in  Carlyle's 
Heroes  and  Hero  Worship  was  necessary  and  right; 
for  the  corollary  of  hero-worship  is  a  contempt  for 
common  men.  But  the  reaction  against  the  all  im- 
portance of  the  great  man  emphasized  to  an  exag- 
gerated degree  the  harder  forces  of  environment, 
and  obscured  the  significance  of  the  less  calculable, 
but  vastly  significant  force  of  individual  action. 
Yet  the  influences  of  environment  are  relatively 
passive  causes  ;  and  the  very  condition  of  their 
reaction  upon  man  is  his  activity  with  reference  to 
them.  It  is  the  countless  ideals  and  actions  of  the 
innumerable  individuals,  inextricably  intermingled, 
that  form  the  dynamic  force  of  human  history. 

As  the  individual  is  the  active  force  in  society, 
so  within  his  life  it  is  the  ideal  which  is  creative 
with  reference  to  conduct.     Everywhere   the  two 


74  THE  DYNAMIC   CHARACTER  OF 

are  related  as  soul  and  body :  the  one  the  inspiring 
spirit,  the  other  the  imperfectly  realized  result. 
Plato's  thought  of  the  hardness  of  matter,  and  the 
slowness  with  which  it  yields  to  the  impression  of 
the  idea,  finds  a  real  equivalent  in  the  slow  and  in- 
complete way  in  which  ideals  work  out  into  actual 
life.  Yet  the  unrealized  ideal  has  changed  the 
worth  of  the  man,  if  he  has  struggled  up  toward  it. 

"What  I  aspired  to  be, 
And  was  not,  comforts  me," 

says  Browning's  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,  and  it  may  well 
comfort  anyone  ;  for  the  effort,  though  unsuccess- 
ful, has  changed  the  value  of  the  life  to  "God, 
whose  wheel  the  pitcher  shaped,"  and  therefore  to 
all  whom  the  life  touches.  Thus  the  ideal  is  a 
creative  force  behind  action,  even  when  there 
is  a  failure  to  realize  it  in  conduct. 

Carlyle  was  right  in  saying  that  "A  man's  re- 
ligion is  the  chief  fact  with  regard  to  him:"  but 
only  if  the  religion  be  interpreted  to  mean,  not  only 
the  fundamental  belief,  but  the  emotional  activity 
that  accompanies  it.  An  ideal  is  the  most  practical 
thing  in  the  world,  for  it  is  a  force  behind  action 
that  must  be  reckoned  with  by  the  frankest 
materialist.  Belief  and  action  continually  modify 
each  other:  no  one  can  believe  permanently  in 
spiritual  realities,  and  live  as  if  they  did  not  exist; 
and  no  one  can  really  doubt  the  fundamental  worth 


PEKSONAL   IDEALS  76 

and  meaning  of  life,  who  lives  as  if  there  were  such 
at  the  heart.  True,  one  may  be  tangled  up  in  a  chain 
of  reasoning,  and  may  feel  compelled  to  accept  an 
intellectual  view  opposed  to  the  character  of  one's 
life ;  but  the  fact  is,  one  never  does  accept  it  at 
heart,  though  one  may  profess  it  intellectually. 
Thus  his  profession  may  be  other  than  "the  thing 
a  man  does  practically  lay  to  heart"  concerning 
the  universe  and  his  relation  to  it.  The  worst 
materialism  is  not  the  theory  that  goes  by  that 
name,  but  the  living  as  if  there  were  no  meaning  in 
life  beyond  the  capricious  pleasures  of  the  moment; 
and  the  true  belief  in  spiritual  realities  is  found 
only  in  the  one  who  affirms  in  every  action  the 
eternity  of  the  best  things  in  human  life. 

When  Hamlet  drifts  with  the  tide  of  fate,  failing 
to  choose  any  action  that  might  express  himself 
and  break  the  spell  of  circumstances,  he  inevitably 
believes  in  fate.  Every  important  action  which  he 
does  results  from  some  sudden  access  of  emotion, 
and  so  seems  the  result  of  forces  behind  him, 
rather  than  of  his  own  will.  Indignant  that  the 
king  (as  he  supposes)  would  spy  upon  his  con- 
fidence to  his  mother,  he  strikes  through  the  arras 
and  unexpectedly  wounds  Polonius.  Drawing 
aside  the  curtain  and  discovering  his  victim,  he 
merely  says : 

"Thou  wretched,  rash,  intruding  fool,  farewell! 
I  took  thee  for  thy  better :  take  thy  fortune ; 
Tbou  fifid'it  to  b«  too  bufy  is  touuf  dangei-/' 


76         THE  DYNAMIC  CHAEACTER  OF 

Then  without  a  word  of  remorse  he  turns  to  his 
accusation  of  his  mother.  Later,  he  turns  again  to 
Polonius,  saying  quietly : 

"For  this  same  lord, 
I  do  repent;  but  heaven  hath  pleas'd  it  so, 
To  punish  me  with  this  and  this  with  me, 
That  I  must  be  their  scourge  and  minister." 

Again  when  he  discovers  the  treachery  of  his 
college  comrades,  Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstern, 
he  quickly  seals  the  letter  that  sends  them  to  the 
fate  for  which  he  had  been  intended.  When  he 
relates  the  circumstances  to  Horatio,  the  man  of 
action,  the  latter  exclaims  in  horror : 

"So  Guildenstern  and  Eosencrantz  go  to't." 

And  Hamlet  turns  on  him  : 

"  Why,  man,  they  did  make  love  to  this  employment; 

They  are  not  near  my  conscience ;  their  defeat 

Does  by  their  own  insinuation  grow. 

'Tis  dangerous  when  the  baser  nature  comes 

Between  the  pass  and  fell  incensed  points 

Of  mighty  opposites." 

It  is  SO  when  he  kills  the  king  at  the  end  :  and 
just  before  that  tragic  outcome  Hamlet  gives  a 
crowning  expression  of  his  attitude  toward  destiny: 

Horatio, 

"  If  your  mind  dislike  anything,  obey  It.  I  will  forestall 
their  repair  hither,  and  say  you  are  not  fit." 


PERSONAL   IDEALS  77 


Hamlet, 


"  Not  a  whit ;  we  defy  augury :  there's  a  special  providence 
In  the  fall  of  a  sparrow.  If  it  be  now,  'tis  not  to  come ;  if  it 
be  not  to  come,  it  will  be  now ;  if  it  be  not  now,  yet  it  will 
come :  the  readiness  is  all.  Since  no  man  knows  aught  of 
what  he  leaves,  what  is't  to  leave  betimes  ?    Let  be." 

This  is  not  the  faith  that  trusts  in  the  all-loving 
Father,  who  numbers  the  hairs  of  our  head,  and 
watches  over  the  very  fowls  of  the  air.  It  is  the 
sense  of  being  dominated  by  a  dark  destiny,  which 
is,  if  not  blind,  a  power  working  toward  ends  and 
by  means  which  we  can  in  no  wise  understand. 

It  is  thus  always  that  faith  is  influenced  by 
action  or  the  failure  to  act.  When  the  Duke  and 
his  loved  one  in  Browning's  Statue  and  the  Bust, 
fail  either  to  renounce  or  afiirm  their  love,  and 
drift  from  one  caprice  to  another,  they  must 
inevitably  come  to  regard  their  love  as  a  dream : 

"  But  next  day  passed,  and  next  day  yet, 
With  still  fresh  cause  to  wait  one  day  more 
Ere  each  leaped  over  the  parapet. 

And  still,  as  love's  brief  morning  wore, 
With  a  gentle  start,  half  smile,  half  sigh, 
They  found  love  not  as  it  seemed  before. 

They  thought  it  would  work  infallibly, 

But  not  in  despite  of  heaven  and  earth— 

The  rose  would  blow  when  the  storm  passed  by. 


78  THE   DYNAMIC   CHARACTEE  OF 

So  weeks  grew  months,  years — gleam  by  gleam 
The  glory  dropped  from  their  youth  and  love, 
And  both  perceived  they  had  dreamed  a  dream." 

When  a  human  being  comes  to  regard  as  foolish 
and  misleading  dreams  those  ideals  which  he  has 
once  sincerely  reverenced,  it  is  his  own  condem- 
nation. Had  he  lived  ever  toward  them,  their 
forms  would  have  changed,  but  the  spirit  would 
have  remained,  the  ideals  of  the  man  would  have 
been  the  higher  children  of  the  ideals  of  the  boy. 

And  as  life  continually  molds  faith,  so  the  latter 
is  an  inspiring  cause  behind  action.  An  increase 
in  the  devotion  to  an  ideal,  or  in  the  vision  of  what 
is  the  ideal,  is  a  new  inspiration  in  conduct,  as  a 
struggle  to  realize  in  action  what  one  does  see 
reacts  upon  one's  vision,  widening  it  and  elevating 
it  at  every  point.  If  a  man  is  carrying  a  burden 
up  a  mountain  the  load  may  be  lightened  in  two 
ways :  by  increasing  the  enthusiasm  of  his  effort 
to  reach  the  summit,  or  by  decreasing  the  load. 
Dante  gives  a  wonderful  expression  of  this  truth 
in  a  passage  of  the  Purgatorio,  where  Virgil 
answers  his  question  as  to  the  value  of  prayer  for 
those  who  are  struggling  upon  the  mountain  of 
purification.  The  response  is  that  although  prayer 
in  no  way  changes  the  law,  the  love  that  it  repre- 
sents and  expresses  may  be  itself  a  fulfilment  of 
the  law ;  and  this  is  one  of  the  simplest  of  all  truths 


PERSONAL  IDEALS  79 

in  the  problems  of  daily  life.  Love  that  lifts  up 
and  helps  him  who  is  fallen  is  as  truly  a  force  in 
overcoming  the  inertia  of  his  sin  as  is  his  own 
struggle. 

One's  ideal  is  one's  vision  from  the  slope  of  the 
mountain  of  endeavor:  each  step  of  climbing 
widens  the  horizon,  not  in  one  only,  but  in  all 
directions ;  while  the  wider  vision  inspires  renewed 
effort.  Thus  it  is  impossible  to  change  either  the 
ideal  or  the  conduct  of  a  man  or  an  epoch  of  men, 
without  changing  both  elements :  but  it  is  the  ideal 
which  is  logically  the  cause,  the  conduct  which  is 
the  effect ;  and  always  the  creative  element  in  the 
dynamic  progress  of  the  world  comes  in  through 
the  elevation  of  the  ideal,  that  is,  through  the 
higher  vision  of  the  men  who  are  upon  the  advan- 
cing margin  of  life. 

Therefore  it  is,  that  if  we  look  only  at  the  exter- 
nal conduct  of  men,  we  can  never  fully  appreciate 
the  significance  of  their  lives.  To  judge  a  man 
through  his  actions  we  need  to  know  the  entire 
series  of  these,  and  to  organize  them  into  a  synthe- 
sis of  the  whole.  But  if  we  can  receive,  through 
the  confidence  of  friendship  or  otherwise,  a  con- 
crete expression  of  the  man's  inner  aspiration,  of 
what  he  is  at  heart  really  striving  after,  we  have  a 
key  to  what  is  a  dominating  and  creative  cause  in 
his  life.  His  action  to-day  is  only  a  passing  shadow 


80  THE  DYNAMIC  CHARACTER   OF 

on  the  sun-dial  of  time;  what  he  aspires  to  be  is 
the  creative  cause  in  his  life — what  he  forever  is  to 
be.  It  is  therefore  that  love  always  idealizes  the 
loved  one,  that  is,  sees  and  loves  the  ideal  of  the 
loved  one,  as  well  as  its  partial  expression.  Did 
love  not  see  and  worship  the  ideal,  it  would  be 
external  to  the  very  heart  of  the  life,  and  so  would 
not  involve  that  close  interweaving  of  one  person- 
ality with  another  which  in  the  highest  sense  is 
love. 

It  is  true  we  do  not  understand  the  whole  life  if 
we  know  only  the  ideal,  and  do  not  see  the  measure 
of  failure  or  success  in  attaining  it  which  the 
life  contains.  To  understand  adequately  human 
nature  in  any  of  its  phases,  it  is  necessary  to  know 
what  it  aspired  to  be  and  what  it  was  ;  and  each  of 
these  lines  of  approach  throws  light  upon  the  other. 
If  we  look  upon  the  vast  Egyptian  statues,  with 
their  combination  of  human  and  animal  forms, 
attempting  to  achieve  greatness  by  mechanical  size, 
the  outline  hard,  with  no  effort  to  delineate  the 
beautiful  play  of  muscles,  we  can  understand  bet- 
ter the  civilization  of  Egypt.  The  tyranny  of  a 
caste,  the  immersion  in  the  material  world,  the 
trembling  in  the  presence  of  the  unknown,  are  all 
meaningful  to  us.  And  on  the  other  hand,  the  con- 
ditions of  Egyptian  life  explain  the  Sphinx  and 
the  statues  of  the  gods.     So  the  grotesque-crowned 


PERSONAL  IDEALS  81 

cathedral  of  Notre  Dame,  with  its  bewildering 
multitude  of  forms,  and  its  Gothic  arches,  inter- 
prets and  is  explained  by  the  strange  chaos  of 
opposing  aspirations  and  institutions  we  call  the 
middle  ages. 

Yet  of  the  two  phases,  we  can  generally  come 
nearer  the  heart  of  the  life  and  its  larger  signifi- 
cance if  we  understand  the  ideal  rather  than  the  con- 
duct. It  was  such  a  thought  that  moved  Aristotle 
when  he  said:  "Poetry,  therefore,  is  a  more  philo- 
sophical and  a  higher  thing  than  history :  for 
poetry  tends  to  express  the  universal,  history  the 
particular."  Many  times  a  Greek  myth,  or  a 
canto  of  Homer,  will  give  one  a  deeper  understand- 
ing of  the  Greek  spirit  than  a  hundred  pages  of 
detailed  history  of  political  and  military  events. 

It  is  long  since  Spinoza  reasoned  that,  "The 
knowledge  of  an  effect  depends  upon  and  involves 
the  knowledge  of  the  cause."  Certainly,  adequate 
knowledge  of  human  history  must  see  it  from  the 
point  of  view  of  those  ideals  that  have  been  creative 
forces  in  it.  For  as  life  is  possible  only  with 
growth,  it  is  only  when  we  understand  the  forces 
of  this  growth  that  we  appreciate  life  ;  and  in  the 
individual  and  the  race  alike,  it  is  the  ever  enlarg- 
ing, ever  growing  ideal  that  is  the  dynamic  force, 
the  primary  moving  power  in  the  human  spirit. 


IV. 
THE  CONTENT  OF  THE  IDEAL  OF  LIFE 


THE  constant  subject  of  discussion  in  ethical 
philosophy  has  been  the  question  of  the 
end  or  aim  of  human  life.  Of  the  four 
causes  into  which  Aristotle  analyzed  the  condition- 
ing principles  of  any  existing  thing,  the  final 
cause — the  end  sought  in  creating  it — is  the  most 
important,  for  it  determines  the  material,  the  form- 
giving  idea,  and  moves  the  efiicient  cause  to  action. 
Therefore,  were  it  possible  to  lay  down  a  final 
formula  of  the  end  of  human  action,  this  would 
certainly  be  of  great  assistance  to  us  ;  but  the  fact 
that  life  is  a  growth-process,  in  which  the  ideal  and 
action  advance  together,  precludes  this  possibility, 
unless  the  formula  be  a  mere  abstraction  of  uni- 
versal relations,  omitting  all  concrete  and  changing 
principles,  and  therefore  barren.  The  best  pos- 
sible illustration  of  such  an  abstraction  is  given  in 
the  categorical  imperative  of  Kant,  to  the  rigorous 
universality  of  which  all  must  agree,  but  which 
tells  us  nothing  regarding  the  concrete  content  of 
action. 

Moreover,  as  it  is  the  final  cause  that  gives 
rationality  to  action,  so  all  proximate  ends  which 
are  sincerely  sought  have  some  measure  of  justifi- 
cation ;  and  to  choose  one  among  them  as  absolute, 
is  to  lose  the  significance  of  the  rest. 


86  THE   CONTENT  OF  THE  IDEAL  OF   LIFE 

But  the  chief  reason  why  the  discussion  of  ethics 
has  been  so  futile,  is  because  it  has  considered  the 
formal  statement  of  the  aim,  with  little  reference 
to  the  concrete  interpretation  of  this  in  life.  While 
the  formal  statement  is  important,  its  significance 
depends  upon  the  actual  content  of  the  ideal  of  life 
which  one  holds  up  to  oneself  as  worthy  of  imi- 
tation. Men  who  differ  from  each  other  most 
widely  in  their  conduct  and  ideals  may  use  the 
same  terms  in  stating  the  end  of  life.  Pleasure- 
seeking  is  to  one  an  abandonment  to  the  mere 
caprices  of  sensuality,  while  to  another  it  is  a 
seeking  of  the  permanent  sources  of  the  most 
refined  enjoyment.  Between  the  creed  of  a  sen- 
sualist and  the  ethical  views  of  a  Walter  Pater  is  an 
unbridged  chasm,  and  yet  both  might  define  the 
aim  of  human  endeavor  in  the  same  terms.  It  is 
because  of  this  that  Epicurus  himself  has  been  so 
misunderstood,  and  his  name  used  for  low  forms 
of  egoistic  indulgence.  Indeed,  in  the  last  resort, 
Stoicism  and  Epicureanism  meet :  the  one  holding 
the  highest  duty  to  be  an  utter  indifference  to  pains 
and  pleasures,  and  the  other  regarding  a  divine 
"apathy"  as  the  only  worthy  self-satisfaction. 
Self-realization  may  mean  an  obedience  to  the 
whims  of  selfishness,  or  an  aflBrmation  of  the 
noblest  life  for  oneself.  Self-sacrifice  may  be  a 
blind  and  immoral  renunciation  of  the  primary 


THE  CONTENT  OF  THE  IDEAL  OF  LIFE     87 

obligation  to  live  one's  own  life,  or  a  seeking  of  the 
highest  good  of  others,  as  against  a  lower  selfish- 
ness. It  is  not  the  formal  statement  of  the  end  of 
life,  but  the  concrete  ideal  which  the  individual 
strives  to  attain,  that  is  the  final  test  of  character 
and  the  determining  principle  of  action. 

Into  the  making  of  this  changing  ideal  enter 
many  elements,  rational  and  irrational.  Its  content 
is  often  implicit  in  the  unconscious  life  of  the 
individual,  and  is  sharply  defined  only  under  the 
stress  of  critical  circumstances.  Its  basis  is  always 
the  body  of  inherited  instinct  which  represents  the 
gathered  up  life  of  the  past.  Whether  these  in- 
stincts are  due  in  part  to  the  inheritance  of  acquired 
characteristics,  or  wholly  to  the  slower  and  more 
ruthless  working  of  natural  selection,  they  repre- 
sent the  past  of  the  race  perpetuated  in  the  indi- 
vidual. For  the  presence  of  these  elements  the 
individual  is  not  responsible  ;  and  yet  they  are  the 
most  tenacious  of  all  that  enter  into  the  ideal  of 
life.  Their  long  biological  history  makes  them 
more  permanent  and  more  powerful  than  those 
recently  acquired.  He  is  a  rare  man  who  does  not 
fall  more  or  less  blindly  under  their  dominance  in 
the  crises  of  his  experience. 

In  the  main  these  instincts  are  in  line  with  life ; 
but  because  they  have  been  selected  under  the 
stress  of  earlier  necessities,  they  are  not  entirely 


88  THE  CONTENT   OF  THE  IDEAL  OF  LIFE 

in  harmony  with  the  needs  of  to-day.  Among 
them  are  some  that  once  were  virtues,  but  with  the 
progress  of  life  have  become  wrong.  Such,  in  the 
main,  are  the  instincts  of  jealousy  and  revenge. 
Once  these  passions  were  necessary  to  the  exist- 
ence and  progress  of  the  best  life.  In  the  primi- 
tive family,  if  the  children  of  the  strongest  were 
to  survive,  it  was  essential  that  the  passion  of 
jealousy  should  be  powerful  enough  in  the  male 
organism  to  permit  the  sacrifice  even  of  life  itself 
to  keep  and  protect  the  females  and  offspring. 
Similarly,  an  intense  instinct  of  revenge  increased 
the  chance  for  survival  and  perpetuation  of  the 
tribe  in  which  it  was  present.  Thus  on  the  plane 
of  primitive  existence,  jealousy  and  revenge  were 
virtues  of  c^racter  to  be  praised  and  imitated. 
But  that  plane  of  life  is  behind  us  ;  and  as  crim- 
inals are  often  heroes  born  too  late,  the  virtues  of 
yesterday  may  be  the  crimes  of  to-day.  Almost 
never  to-day  can  circumstances  arise  where  jeal- 
ousy and  revenge  are  not  wrong,  that  is,  opposed 
to  the  best  interests  of  all  life.  The  integrity  of 
the  family  and  of  all  personal  relations  is  depend- 
ent, not  upon  the  brute  passion  of  jealousy,  but 
upon  frankness  and  truth,  and  a  willingness  to  find 
and  do  that  which  is  best  for  all.  The  preservation 
of  society  is  dependent,  not  upon  revenge,  but 
upon  the    calm    and    rational    treatment    of   the 


THE   CONTENT   OF   THE  IDEAL  OF  LIFE  89 

criminal  as  a  diseased  member  of  the  social  body, 
to  be  cured  if  possible,  amputated  if  necessary  to 
prevent  the  infection  of  the  whole.  And  yet,  what 
man,  in  a  bitter  crisis  of  his  experience,  does  not 
find  the  instincts  of  jealousy  and  revenge  rising  up 
and  taking  possession  of  him,  to  the  exclusion  of 
the  more  rational  elements  in  the  content  of  his 
ideal  of  life  ?  He  who  in  the  bitter  exigencies  of 
suffered  wrong  does  not  give  way  to  brute  passion, 
is  the  rare  man  who  has  been  able  to 

"  Move  upward,  working  out  the  beast. 
And  let  the  ape  and  tiger  die." 

Correlative  with  the  instincts  of  jealousy  and 
revenge  in  men  are  those  of  blind  self-submission 
in  women.  There  was  a  time  in  the  history  of  life 
when  the  only  woman  who  could  survive  and  per- 
petuate herself  in  offspring  was  the  one  who  loved 
to  be  violently  mastered ;  and  hence  it  was  upon 
such  an  one  that  the  premium  was  placed  in  the 
struggle  for  existence.  Among  the  Australian 
savages,  it  is  the  female  who  can  endure  to  be  rav- 
ished from  her  tribe  at  the  expense  of  her  own 
physical  suffering,  and  who  can  love  only  such  a 
brute  captor,  who  survives  and  perpetuates  her  in- 
stincts. While  the  woman  too  fine  to  endure 
violence,  or  too  independent  to  suffer  control,  would 
inevitably  be  sacrificed  in  the  struggle  of  life.  Pain- 
ful as  is  this  history,  it  is  practically  universal  in 


90  THE   CONTENT   OF   THE   IDEAL   OF   LIFE 

primitive  times.  Untold  centuries  of  biological 
history  have  developed  in  women  the  instinct  of 
blind  self-submission  and  the  love  of  being  mas- 
tered. Yet  though  this  instinct,  in  its  refined  ex- 
pression, adds  some  of  the  most  sacred  beauties  to 
life,  there  are  many  times  when  the  unreasoning 
affirmation  of  it  is  distinctly  opposed  to  the  best 
interests  of  all,  and  results  in  misery  and  destruc- 
tion. Still,  the  woman  who,  in  a  crisis  of  her 
experience,  does  not  blindly  abnegate  herself,  but 
rationally  faces  life  and  affirms  what  is  best,  is  a 
rare  heroic  woman  who  has  attained  the  difficult 
plane  of  rationality  and  freedom. 

The  relatively  blind  instincts,  good  and  bad,  due 
to  long  ages  of  biological  selection  and  inheritance, 
are  not  the  only  irrational  elements  in  the  ideal  of 
life.  The  influence  of  social  environment,  so  incon- 
ceivably great  in  the  earliest  years,  and  so  power- 
ful through  the  whole  of  existence,  is  also  largely 
irrational.  We  attempt  to  rationalize  this  influence 
through  education,  and  are  succeeding  in  a  remark- 
able degree.  The  power  to  carry  and  use  the 
equipment  of  civilization,  which  accumulates  and 
develops  with  such  startling  rapidity,  depends 
scarcely  at  all  upon  biological  change,  but  almost 
entirely  upon  the  influence  of  education.  One  of 
the  best  illustrations  in  history  of  the  power  of 
consciously    applied     culture    to    determine    the 


THE  CONTENT  OF  THE  IDEAL  OF  LIFE  91 

content  of  the  ideal,  is  found  in  the  development  of 
a  national  spirit  in  America.  The  creation  of  the 
peculiarly  American  attitude  in  children  of  immi- 
grants from  all  the  nations  of  Europe  is  a  most 
startling  proof  of  the  power  of  consciously  directed 
education  to  determine  the  content  of  the  ideal  of 
life. 

This  influence  is,  however,  but  slightly  and 
indirectly  under  the  control  of  the  individual. 
Whether  the  child  is  the  victim  of  an  evil  educa- 
tion, or  the  blessed  product  of  a  good  one,  depends 
but  little  upon  his  own  conscious  choice;  and  with 
education  works  the  tremendous  power  of  the  gen- 
eral social  atmosphere,  which  colors  subtly  but  in- 
delibly the  whole  view  of  life.  Accidents  of  social 
convention  come  to  have  as  great  a  significance  in 
our  consciousness  as  principles  of  morality.  We 
are  as  ashamed  of  wearing  an  unconventional  coat 
as  of  telling  a  lie;  and  departing  from  the  particu- 
lar type  of  Sunday  observance  we  have  been  taught, 
seems  as  wrong  as  positively  injuring  our  neighbor. 

This  power  of  social  convention  is  strong  even 
over  individuals  who  have  reached  a  considerable 
measure  of  independent  reflection;  and  with  un- 
thinking men  it  takes  very  largely  the  place  of 
morality.  Respect  for  certain  kinds  of  work,  and 
contempt  for  others,  with  the  attitude  of  the  indi- 
vidual toward  his  own  vocation,  are  largely  the 


92  THE  CONTENT  OF  THE  IDEAL  OF  LIFE 

resnlt  of  tlie  social  atmosphere.  In  studying  a  series 
of  papers,  written  by  children  of  an  English  board 
school,  answering  the  question,  "What  person 
would  you  like  to  resemble?".  Professor  Barnes 
discovered  that  nearly  all  wished  to  enter  some 
mechanical  trade,  the  army  or  navy,  or  domestic 
service.  There  is  hardly  a  school  in  America  where 
one-tenth  of  the  children  would  spontaneously 
choose  such  vocations ;  and  yet  all  kinds  of  honest 
work  are  as  generally  respected  in  America  as  in 
England.  The  cause  of  the  difference  lies  in  the 
social  atmosphere:  children  of  certain  classes  in 
England  naturally  look  to  those  vocations  which 
are  followed  by  members  of  their  own  class ;  in 
America,  where  class  lines  are  more  obliter- 
ated, and  where  children  of  all  classes  are  educated 
together,  each  looks  toward  any  vocation  which 
attracts  him,  and  which  he  believes  himself  able  to 
attain.  If  we  think  how  fundamental  in  the  ideal 
of  life  is  the  attitude  toward  the  vocation,  the 
power  of  social  environment  to  determine  the  con- 
tent of  the  ideal  will  be  evident. 

Relatively  irrational  as  they  are,  the  influences 
of  social  environment  are  only  less  absolute  than 
the  basis  of  inherited  instinct  in  determining  the 
ideal.  The  place  occupied  by  the  ideal  of  celibacy 
in  the  middle  ages,  opposed  as  it  is  to  every 
inherited  instinct  and  to  all  healthy  and  natural 


THE  CONTENT  OF  THE  IDEAL  OF  LIFE     93 

tendencies  of  life,  shows  how  the  social  atmos- 
phere may  stamp  itself  upon  successive  genera- 
tions of  individuals.  Much  of  what  is  called  mor- 
ality is  simply  an  unreasoning  conformity  to  the 
conventional  type.  Many  individuals  who  pass 
from  one  environment  to  another,  involving  quite 
different  moral  standards,  fall  as  unthinkingly  into 
line  with  the  latter,  as  they  have  previously  con- 
formed blindly  to  the  former.  This  explains  in 
such  cases  the  disintegration,  not  of  character,  for 
such  people  have  none,  but  of  the  artificially 
cemented  elements  of  life  that  seemed  to  be  char- 
acter until  their  independent  value  was  tested. 

If  it  is  in  the  crises  of  experience  that  inherited 
instincts  are  most  powerful  in  their  control  of  as, 
it  is  in  the  dead  areas  of  daily  existence  that 
elements  derived  from  social  environment  are 
strongest  in  the  content  of  our  ideal  of  life.  It  is 
easy  to  defy  conventions  in  a  crisis  where  splendid 
enthusiasm  takes  possession  of  us ;  it  is  hard  not 
to  accept  social  opinion,  even  in  its  judgment  con- 
cerning ourselves,  under  the  continuous  pressure 
of  its  remorseless  and  authoritative  assertion.  To 
regard  a  man  unjustly  as  an  outlaw  will  often  lead 
him,  first  to  accept  the  judgment,  and  then  to 
become  what  it  implies.  Many  women  who,  from 
the  highest  moral  motives,  seek  a  divorce,  come 
at  length  to  regard  their  own   action   with   some 


94  THE   CONTENT   OF  THE  IDEAL  OF  LIFE 

measure  of  shame,  so  strong  is  the  pressure  of  con- 
ventional opinion.  Standards  of  honor  and  purity 
are  hopelessly  irrational ;  and  much  of  what  the 
individual  would  afSrm  as  his  own  independently 
formed  ideal  of  life,  is  a  mere  echo  of  the  social 
environment  in  which  he  lives. 

Thus  many  of  the  elements  forming  the  content 
of  the  ideal  of  life,  which  either  in  crises,  or  on 
the  dead  level  of  existence,  are  most  powerful  in 
determining  action,  are  relatively  irrational.  It 
becomes  then  of  the  utmost  importance  to  cultivate 
as  far  as  possible  those  elements  which  may  ration- 
alize the  ideal.  We  owe  this  effort  because  we  are 
responsible  not  only  for  obeying  conscience,  but 
for  possessing  as  enlightened  a  conscience  as  pos- 
sible. Nature  never  forgives  us  for  ignorance  of 
the  law  ;  and  the  neglect  to  use  any  possible  chan- 
nel to  right  thinking  makes  us  indirectly  responsi- 
ble in  mistaken  action.  It  is  an  insufficient  excuse 
to  say  we  did  the  best  we  knew,  unless  we  used 
every  possible  opportunity  to  know  the  best.  One- 
half  the  evil  of  life  depends  upon  following  wrong 
ideals  ;  in  exact  measure  with  the  dynamic  power 
of  an  ideal  to  determine  action  is  our  obligation  to 
rationalize  it  by  every  means  in  our  reach. 

This  can  be  accomplished  in  some  measure  by 
simple  reflection  upon  the  elements  forming  it,  in 
the  endeavor  to  bring  order  and  unity  among  them. 


THE  CONTENT  OF  THE  IDEAL  OP  LIFE  95 

A  very  little  thinking  will  show  us  the  difference 
between  wearing  an  unconventional  garment,  and 
telling  a  lie ;  between  work  that  is  honest  but 
despised,  and  crime.  With  most  men  the  elements 
are  a  chaotic  mass  ;  now  one,  now  another,  domin- 
ates consciousness  and  leads  to  action.  An  instinct 
of  revenge  may  struggle  with  a  conventional  respect 
for  law  or  an  acquired  lesson  of  forbearance  and 
forgiveness.  The  result  is  a  disintegrated  series  of 
actions,  where  each  must  be  referred  for  its  ex- 
planation to  separate  elements  of  character,  and 
where  the  predominance  of  good  or  evil  in  the 
whole  of  life  is  dependent  upon  irrational  and 
accidental  causes.  The  conscious  effort  to  clarify 
and  unify  the  ideal  leads  to  a  suppression  of  certain 
motives  and  an  affirmation  of  others,  so  that  action 
becomes  increasingly  reasonable  and  connected. 

This  effort  to  give  unity  to  the  ideal  leads  us  to 
ask  what  elements  deserve  prominence  in  it ;  and 
this  inevitably  takes  the  individual  outside  the 
limits  of  his  subjective  experience,  into  a  study  of 
his  life  in  relation  to  others.  He  is  then  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  amazing  complexity  of  the 
world,  and  the  perplexing  diversity  of  ideals  among 
men.  He  has  learned  one  great  lesson  if  this  leads 
him  to  "judge  not".  Burns  had  acquired  the 
lesson  through  his  own  painful  experience,  when 
he  said : 


96  THE   CONTENT  OF  THE  IDEAL  OF   LIFE 

"Then  gently  scan  your  brother  man, 

Still  gentler  sister  woman ; 
Though  they  may  gang  a  kennin'  wrang, 

To  step  aside  is  human : 
One  point  must  still  be  greatly  dark, 

The  moving  Why  they  do  It; 
And  just  as  lamely  can  ye  mark 

How  far,  perhaps,  they  rue  it. 

Who  made  the  heart,  'tis  He  alone 

Decidedly  can  try  us ; 
He  knows  each  chord — its  various  tone. 

Each  spring — its  various  bias : 
Then  at  the  balance  let's  be  mute, 

We  never  can  adjust  it; 
What's  done  we  partly  may  compute, 

But  know  not  what's  resisted." 

He  will  be  led  beyond  this  lesson :  his  effort  to 
understand  the  ideals  of  others  will  take  him 
within  their  personal  lives ;  he  will  see  the  world 
through  their  eyes,  and  come  to  appreciate  the 
significance  of  elements  which  were  wanting  or 
suppressed  in  his  own  view  of  life.  As  the  ideal 
of  an  individual  is  the  circle  of  vision  from  the 
point  of  view  that  he  has  attained,  it  must  always 
have  a  certain  validity  and  justification.  It  is  only 
the  insincere  man  whose  reaction  upon  life  is  un- 
instructive.  Goethe  tells  us  that  very  early  he 
found  there  was  only  one  class  of  people  whom  he 
could  afford  to  neglect — the  insincere.  All  others, 
no  matter  how  eccentric  or  mistaken,  had  some- 


THE  CONTENT   OF  THE   IDEAL  OF  LIFE  97 

thing  to  teach  him.  In  reading  Goethe's  auto- 
biography I  was  early  struck  with  the  remarkably 
interesting  people  who  were  grouped  about  him, 
in  every  place  in  which  he  lived.  For  a  long  time 
it  seemed  to  me  simply  that  Goethe  was  unusually 
fortunate  in  the  people  he  knew  ;  but  afterwards  I 
came  to  see  that  each  group  of  his  friends  was  so 
remarkably  interesting  because  Goethe  was  the 
center.  That  is,  it  was  because  he  possessed  the 
power  to  call  out  what  was  strongest  and  best  in 
every  person  with  whom  he  was  associated,  and 
because  he  reveals  these  positive  qualities  to  us, 
that  his  friends  seem  such  gifted  and  original 
people.  Were  each  of  us  a  Goethe,  our  circle  of 
friends  would  be  almost  if  not  quite  as  interesting 
as  were  Goethe's. 

Every  earnest  man  can  teach  us  some  new  lesson 
because  his  life  means  something.  In  a  recorded 
saying  of  Buddha  we  read,  "Earnestness  is  the 
path  of  immortality,  thoughtlessness  the  path  of 
death.  Those  who  are  in  earnest  do  not  die,  those 
who  are  thoughtless  are  as  if  dead  already." 
Sincerity  is  simply  the  foundation  of  life,  and  an 
earnest  man  often  teaches  us  more  in  proportion  as 
his  life  is  different  from  ours. 

As  the  ideal  of  life  grows  steadily,  not  only  in 
the  individual,  but  in  the  race,  so  the  generic  ideals 
prevailing  in  our  own  time  form  but  a  moment  in 


98  THE   CONTENT   OF   THE   IDEAL   OF   LIFE 

the  spiritual  evolution  of  humanity.  To  stand 
truly  upon  the  vantage  ground  of  the  centuries, 
and  find  the  fuller  possibilities  of  life  that  are  at 
once  our  privilege  and  our  duty,  it  is  necessary  to 
study  the  great  historic  ideals,  that  we  may  take 
up  into  ourselves  whatever  is  best  in  the  life  of  the 
past,  and  appreciate  the  dynamic  unfolding  of  the 
human  spirit.  This  is  indeed  the  primary  reason 
for  the  study  of  history.  It  is  not  to  obtain  rules 
and  maxims  for  statesmanship  :  the  world  never 
returns  exactly  to  the  same  point,  and  rules  are 
hopelessly  ineffective  in  meeting  the  changing  con- 
ditions of  ever  new  life.  But  to  become  human  by 
realizing  in  ourselves  the  experience  of  the  past,  is 
to  give  to  history  a  priceless  vitality.  Every  earn- 
est expression  of  life  has  its  own  value  and  lesson. 
The  more  remote  a  particular  phase  is  from  our- 
selves the  more  complementary  and  instructive 
may  it  be,  provided  we  enter  into  its  positive  spirit. 
Saint  Francis  has  much  to  teach  us,  because  his 
mistake  is  not  ours,  and  his  excellence  is  the  one 
we  fail  to  reach.  We  are  in  little  danger  of  sprink- 
ling ashes  on  our  food,  or  of  spending  nights  in  the 
snow  in  the  battle  with  dreams  of  our  imagination  ; 
but  the  infinite  sweetness  and  tenderness  of  Saint 
Francis,  his  spiritual  insight,  and  his  close  sym- 
pathy with  nature  and  humble  life,  we  need  to 
attain.     The  mediaeval  world  is  instructive  to  us 


THE  CONTENT  OF  THE  IDEAL  OF   LIFE  99 

precisely  because  it  was  strong  where  we  are  weak, 
as  it  was  weak  where  we  are  strong.  It  is  because 
of  this  that  we  can  stultify  ourselves  by  calling  it 
the  dark  ages,  and  be  blind  to  its  light.  Its  spirit- 
ual aspiration,  its  consciousness  of  eternity,  its 
unfailing  perception  that  sin  is  death,  are  necessary 
to  round  out  our  lives  ;  while  our  intellectual  view 
of  sin  as  steps  in  a  process,  our  conception  of  life 
as  positive  growth,  our  appreciation  of  the  world 
of  the  senses  and  of  action  in  each  moment,  will 
save  us  from  the  negations  of  its  life. 

So  the  orient  completes  the  Occident.  The  high 
spirituality  of  the  one,  its  dazzling  sweep  of  luxu- 
riant imagination,  its  immersion  in  the  Over- Soul, 
supplements  the  positive  science,  the  material  pro- 
gress, the  egotistic  individuality  of  the  other. 
History  is  appreciated,  not  when  its  phases  are 
judged  by  the  accidents  of  to-day,  or  condemned 
for  their  obvious  failures,  but  when  the  positive 
significance  of  each  aspect  of  life  we  study  is  trans- 
formed into  the  growing  vitality  of  our  own  spirit. 

Viewed  in  one  way,  all  education  is  but  the  ini- 
tiation of  the  individual  into  the  experience  of  the 
race.  Beginning  as  a  detached  fragment  of  human- 
ity, it  is  his  opportunity  and  his  obligation  to 
become  Man  ;  to  say  with  Faust,  in  the  higher  and 
not  in  the  lower  spirit : 

•*  All  of  life  for  all  mankind  created 
Shall  be  within  mine  inmost  being  tested." 


100         THE  CONTENT  OF  THE  IDEAL  OP  LIFE 

To  say  this,  not  in  the  abandoned  spirit  of  one 
who  lives  to  follow  the  caprices  of  ever  novel  sensa- 
tions ;  but  in  the  spirit  of  Goethe  himself,  with 
the  aim  of  uniting  all  the  sound  experience  of 
humanity  in  one's  own  breast :  to  pass  from  the 
remote  circumference  of  life  to  the  center  of  the 
human  spirit,  and  feel  its  tides  pulsate  through 
one's  heart.  It  is  possible  to  be  a  detached  bit  of 
wave-foam  on  the  sand,  or  a  single  wave  on  the 
bosom  of  the  great  sea.  To  be  the  former  is  to  be 
nothing ;  to  be  the  latter  is  to  rise  and  fall  with 
the  swelling  of  the  universal  heart — to  be  a  single 
expression  of  the  bosom  of  immensity,  and  one 
with  its  remotest  activity.  To  take  up  into  our- 
selves the  great  ideals  of  history  and  make  them 
our  own,  is  to  go  far  toward  taking  the  point  of 
view  of  the  human  spirit.  The  content  of  the  ideal 
of  life  will  then  be  no  longer  a  disintegrated  series 
of  irrational  elements,  but  a  clarified  and  rational- 
ized unity,  where  the  blind  instincts  shall  be  con- 
trolled by  the  aspirations  of  the  spirit,  and  the 
influences  of  social  convention  shall  be  restrained 
or  affirmed  by  the  independent  conception  of  life. 


V. 

POSITIVE  AND  NEGATIVE  IDEALS 


WHEN  we  approach  the  study  of  historic 
ideals,  we  are  at  first  confused  by  their 
bewildering  variety.  It  seems  as  if 
there  were  no  order  or  principle  in  their  evolution, 
but  as  though  each  were  an  arbitrary  accident,  due 
to  particular  conventions  and  conditions.  A  very 
slight  study  serves  to  remove  this  impression  and 
reveal  definite  laws.  The  principle  of  differentia- 
tion appears  in  the  development  of  standards  of 
life,  as  everywhere ;  and  behind  the  great  diversity 
of  historic  ideals  is  the  undifferentiated  character 
and  attitude  of  primitive  races.  Those  which  show 
the  greatest  negative  perfection,  that  is,  absence  of 
faults,  are  usually  at  the  beginning  in  the  line  of  de- 
velopment. Such  a  people  as  the  Wood-Yeddahs 
of  Ceylon  is  strikingly  free  from  the  usual  vices  of 
civilization.  Living  in  isolated  family  groups 
scattered  through  the  forests,  and  with  a  primitive 
simplicity  of  life,  they  have  no  temptations  toward 
the  faults  which  appear  when  masses  of  men,  with 
centuries  of  civilization  behind  them,  and  each 
with  a  vast  range  of  desires,  are  heaped  struggling 
together. 

Yet  the  negative  goodness  of  the  Veddahs  is 
chiefly  upon  the  non-moral  plane  of  animal  exist- 
ence, since  they  have  not  developed  far  enough  to 


104  POSITIVE   AND   NEGATIVE   IDEALS 

be  capable  of  moral  or  immoral  action,  and  their 
existence  lacks  just  that  positive  content  which  is 
the  measure  of  life.  No  one  but  a  reactionist  like 
Rousseau  would  think  of  regarding  them  as  ideal, 
and  he  only  from  within  the  artificial  surroundings 
of  his  time.  The  noble  savage  seen  in  his  native 
wilderness,  appears  very  different  than  from  the 
point  of  view  of  eighteenth  century  Paris.  There 
are  no  sadder  chapters  than  those  in  which  ac- 
curate observers  have  recorded  the  degradation  and 
waste  of  life  among  savage  tribes. 

From  the  negative  innocence  of  primitive  races 
life  has  developed  in  countless  ways:  here  one  ele- 
ment of  higher  harmony  with  the  universe  has  been 
realized,  there  another.  In  the  whole  process  is  in- 
creasing complication  ;  yet  it  does  not  end  in  the 
production  of  the  greatest  variety  of  moral  types. 
In  the  evolution  of  the  higher  human  life  there  is 
a  third  step  of  progress  that  is  often  ignored: 
growth  is  from  a  simple  homogeneous  unity  at  the 
beginning,  through  differentiation  and  specializa- 
tion, toward  an  inclusive  unity  on  a  higher  plane. 
This  can  be  shown  in  the  evolution  of  society,  of 
religion,  and  of  moral  ideas.  It  is  indeed  the  higher 
expression  of  a  principle  universal  in  evolution: 
the  process  of  specialization  must  be  balanced  at 
every  step  by  one  of  integration.  To  develop  a 
special  organ  of  sight,  without  a  nervous  ori[?Mni/a- 


POSITIVE   AND   NEGATIVE   IDEALS  105 

tion  refined  and  strong  enough  to  take  up  and  use 
the  experience  received  through  the  eye,  would  be  a 
distinct  waste  of  force.  The  integration  of  the 
specialized  function  and  structure  with  the  whole 
life  of  the  organism  must  be  as  great  as  the  differ- 
entiation is  wide. 

The  most  important  expression  of  this  principle 
is  in  the  moral  world.  The  higher  we  go  in  the 
evolution  of  any  phase  of  life,  the  more  unity  we 
find.  The  many  confusing  and  opposing  moral 
standards,  which  mark  the  intervening  periods 
of  development,  tend  to  pass  into  a  common 
recognition  of  the  underlying  laws  of  nature,  by 
harmony  with  which  life  and  all  good  ends  of 
life  may  be  attained. 

In  the  evolution  of  religion,  primitive  awe  in  the 
presence  of  the  unknown  forces  of  life  and  nature 
passes  into  the  bewildering  variety  of  faiths  and 
superstitions  ;  while  these  in  turn  are  replaced  by 
a  common  faith  in  the  sanity  of  the  universe,  the 
ultimate  worth  and  meaning  of  life,  and  the  over- 
arching unity  of  Spirit  behind. 

From  the  small  tribe  of  closely  related  families 
the  countless  political  institutions  of  history 
sprang.  But  through  monarchies,  oligarchies, 
aristocracies,  democracies,  we  can  discern  progress 
toward  a  higher  unity.  Race  ideals  are  slowly 
^ving  place  to  human  ones.     International  law  is 


106  POSITIVE  AND   NEGATIVE    IDEALS 

growing  in  importance.  The  form  of  the  state  is 
gradually  approaching  a  type  which  shall  serve 
best  the  interests  of  all  the  individuals  composing 
it — which  shall  combine  the  most  organic  unity 
with  the  greatest  possible  freedom. 

Yet  in  the  unfolding  of  the  ideal  of  life,  the 
natural  development  toward  higher  and  more 
inclusive  unity  has  from  time  to  time  been  inter- 
rupted by  a  strong  reaction,  and  the  attempt  has 
been  made  to  realize  a  loftier  life  by  the  emphatic 
negation  of  certain  positive  tendencies  of  human 
nature.  Among  the  Hindoos  of  the  orient,  in  the 
Stoicism  of  the  declining  Greco-Roman  world,  and 
above  all  in  mediaeval  Christianity,  is  this  emphasis 
of  reactionary  and  negative  ideals.  This  anomaly 
becomes  interesting  in  proportion  as  the  reasons 
for  it  are  seen.  The  degeneration  of  character 
never  begins  by  the  deliberate  choice  of  evil ;  but 
by  loving  and  seeking  some  good  thing  out  of 
relation  to  the  whole  of  life.  In  periods  of  great 
luxury  and  extravagance,  certain  tendencies,  non- 
moral  in  themselves,  develop  out  of  proportion, 
and  result  in  the  decay  of  character.  In  the 
pressure  of  active  life  such  a  mistake  is  always 
easy,  for  we  become  so  absorbed  in  the  pursuit  of 
proximate  aims  that  we  make  final  ends  of  them, 
forgetting  that  their  value  lies  only  in  serving  as 
a  means  to  something  beyond     Thus  money  is 


POSITIVE   AND   NEGATIVE   IDEALS  107 

power  and  freedom,  but  to  pursue  it  as  an  end 
destroys  wholly  its  meaning,  and  causes  a  rapid 
decay  of  character.  It  is  a  good  thing  to  enjoy 
the  physical  activities  of  one's  life  in  a  sound  and 
healthy  way,  but  to  live  to  satisfy  the  senses  is  to 
degenerate  into  a  brute. 

The  line  between  a  strong  and  healthy  life  of  the 
body,  which  is  made  to  serve  the  spirit,  and  the 
degenerate  sensuality  where  one  lives  only  to  sat- 
isfy the  caprices  of  the  moment,  is  difficult  to  draw, 
and  in  any  period  of  extravagant  living  is  con- 
tinually being  passed.  It  is  then  inevitable  that 
noble  spirits,  wishing  to  free  themselves  and  others 
from  the  slavery  to  the  senses  and  to  things,  should 
seek  freedom  in  a  negation  of  those  tendencies  of 
life,  the  excessive  affirmation  of  which  had  pro- 
duced the  slavery.  Thus  the  very  extreme  of  sen- 
suality among  the  Hindoos  produced  the  reaction 
of  oriental  asceticism ;  and  the  abandonment  to 
the  pleasures  of  the  moment  in  the  declining 
ancient  world  caused  the  revolt  of  Stoicism,  and 
deepened  the  ascetic  tendencies  of  Christianity. 

But  the  balance  of  life  is  not  restored  by  a  nega- 
tion of  the  tendencies  which  have  been  affirmed 
out  of  relation.  The  ascetic  life  may  be  as  selfish 
and  destructive  as  that  against  which  it  reacts. 
Asceticism  has  its  value  as  a  means  of  education ; 
a  strong  self-control  is  necessary  to  the  best  life. 


108  POSITIVE   AND   NEGATIVE   IDEALS 

The  common  failure  is  in  self-abandonment  rather 
than  in  self -repression ;  and  with  the  myriad 
forces  of  the  world  perpetually  inviting  us  to  im- 
merse ourselves  in  the  senses,  a  certain  unnecessary 
heroism  of  denial  is  helpful  in  giving  strength  and 
balance  to  life.  One  should  be  constantly  sure 
that  one  could,  if  necessary,  do  without  the  things 
that  serve  one's  life  ;  and  if  one  doubt  one's  abil- 
ity, one  should  test,  and  thereby  strengthen  it.  A 
certain  unnecessary  reserve  and  repression  accumu- 
lates the  energies  of  life,  as  a  wasteful  expenditure 
must  be  paid  by  a  subsidence  of  the  creative  power. 
Again  and  again  in  history  a  period  of  extrava- 
gant expenditure  has  so  exhausted  the  life  of  a 
race  that  a  long  time  of  incubation  has  been  neces- 
sary to  accumulate  the  forces  of  the  spirit,  and 
make  possible  another  period  of  creative  expres- 
sion. This  is  to  some  extent  natural,  for  the 
rhythmic  alternation  of  action  and  rest  seems  to 
be  a  universal  law  of  life  ;  but  when  the  expend- 
iture is  needlessly  extravagant,  the  rest  is  an  ex- 
hausted stupor  where  the  forces  of  the  spirit  are  at 
a  low  ebb.  Thus  the  ancient  world  recklessly  spent 
itself,  and  necessitated  the  incubation  of  the  mid- 
dle ages.  So,  in  addition  to  the  splendid  and 
legitimate  expression  of  life,  there  was  a  useless 
waste  of  vitality  in  the  Italian  renaissance;  and  it 
is  only  in  our  own  century  that  Italy  is  awakening 


POSITIVE   AND   NEGATIVE   IDEALS  109 

from  the  sleep  into  which  she  was  compelled  to 
pass.  Certainly  the  price  of  life  is  paid  for  every 
creative  expenditure  of  the  spirit,  and  the  punish- 
ment for  wasted  energy  is  full  and  relentless. 

But  the  use  of  a  measure  of  ascetic  self -discipline 
is  a  widely  different  thing  from  the  belief  that  life 
is  realized  by  negating  great  ranges  of  its  activity. 
Such  an  attitude  is  pitiable,  rather  than  blame- 
worthy, for  it  leads  to  such  a  useless  waste  of  life, 
and  yet  is  generally  prompted  by  high  motives. 
The  lives  of  saint  and  celibate  and  ascetic,  of  monk 
and  hermit,  are  an  endless  record  of  the  effort  to 
make  life  noble  by  wasting  its  opportunities  and 
thwarting  its  normal  tendencies.  It  is  a  hopeless 
process:  for  an  exaggerated  attainment  in  one 
direction,  we  pay  the  wealth  of  capacities  for  joy 
and  wisdom  and  love  and  action  that  make  us 
men. 

There  is  a  pathetic  story  told  of  Saint  Francis  of 
Assisi,  the  most  lovable  of  the  saints  of  the  middle 
ages.  His  temptations  were  rarely  like  those  of 
an  Antony,  but  were  usually  to  the  life  that  is 
sweet  and  human.  It  is  said  that  one  cold  winter 
night  he  left  his  cell,  and  went  barefoot  out  into 
the  deep  snow,  clad  only  in  the  simple  woolen  robe 
of  his  order.  He  knelt  in  the  snow,  and  prayed 
and  wept  bitterly  for  a  long  time.  Then  he  arose 
and  made  a  large  mound  of  snow  and  a  number  of 


110  ftJSITIVE   AND   NEGATIVE  IDEALS 

little  ones.  The  large  one  was  for  the  wife  that 
never  had  been,  and  the  little  ones  for  the  children 
that  could  never  be.  Then  Saint  Francis  returned 
to  his  cell,  and  was  never  tempted  in  that  way  by 
the  devil  again ! 

One  who  reads  the  exquisite  story  of  the  friend- 
ship of  Saint  Francis  and  Santa  Clara,  and  realizes 
how  much  of  the  inspiration  of  each  life  was  due  to 
the  sweet  communion  between  them,  must  feel  that 
the  institution  which  made  such  a  friendship  all 
but  impossible  for  them,  and  entirely  so  for  their 
followers,  and  which  abrogated  all  possibility  of 
the  full  consummation  of  human  love,  hampered 
or  did  away  with  one  of  the  most  powerful  forces 
making  for  strong  and  noble  living. 

It  is  true,  the  great  mystic  sanctities  of  life  must 
not  be  too  hastily  and  carelessly  accepted  and 
enjoyed ;  and  a  measure  of  even  unnecessary  renun- 
ciation may  keep  sacred  what  would  not  bear  the 
unchecked  light  of  the  commonplace.  To  live  the 
great  revelation  in  the  details  of  daily  life  is  the 
problem ;  but  this  is  not  accomplished  by  rudely 
unveiling  it  to  the  accidents  of  circumstance.  The 
cheap  familiarity  of  vulgarity  and  selfishness  does 
indeed  breed  contempt,  where  the  intimacy  of  the 
soul  sanctifies  and  exalts. 

Yet  as  a  theory  of  life  asceticism  is  a  noble  but 
a  foolish  mistake:  for  the  ends  of  the  spirit  are 


POSITIVE   AND   NEGATIVE   IDEALS  111 

attained,  not  by  destroying,  but  by  building  up, 
by  realizing  positively  as  full  a  measure  as  may  be 
of  the  possibilities  of  life  which  are  ours.  Goethe 
tells  us  in  a  noble  passage  of  the  "Dichtung  und 
Wahrheit"  that — "Not  in  so  far  as  a  man  leaves 
something  behind  him,  but  in  so  far  as  he  acts  and 
enjoys,  and  awakens  others  to  action  and  enjoy- 
ment, does  he  remain  of  significance."  For  this  to 
be  true,  enjoyment  must  be  interpreted  as  some- 
thing higher  than  pleasure,  and  action  as  more  than 
mechanical  movement.  But  if  they  be  used  to 
include  the  full  life  of  the  spirit,  action  and  enjoy- 
ment may  indeed  test  the  worth  of  life. 

A  slight  study  of  the  actual  world  shows  us  its 
great  contradictions,  but  these  should  not  blind  us 
to  the  worth  of  each  positive  element.  The  worth 
of  Tolstoi  is  not  that  of  Gladstone  ;  the  one  has  a 
relatively  narrow  embodiment  of  the  possibilities 
of  human  experience,  but  these  are  carried  far  in 
their  expression  ;  while  the  other  was  remarkably 
inclusive  in  the  range  of  his  relation  to  humanity, 
without  reaching  the  loftiest  possibilities  in  any 
direction. 

Or  better,  if  we  compare  Saint  Francis  of  Assisi 
and  Goethe,  we  find  an  extremely  narrow  phase  of 
life  reaching  transcendent  expression  in  the  one ; 
where  the  other  astounds  us  by  his  myriad-mind- 
edness,  while  failing  to  satisfy  our  highest  ideals. 


112  POSITIVE   AND   NEGATIVE   IDEALS 

To  condemn  Tolstoi  because  he  lacks  the  breadth  of 
Gladstone,  or  disregard  Goethe  because  he  fails  of 
the  spirituality  of  Saint  Francis,  is  either  way  to 
miss  the  significance  of  life.  Each  of  the  innumer- 
able possible  expressions  of  the  human  spirit  must 
be  accepted  for  what  it  is  worth,  and  only  after  we 
appreciate  what  it  is  both  in  height  and  breadth  is 
there  any  value  in  discovering  its  limitations. 

The  more  complete  the  development  of  the  indi- 
vidual the  more  is  it  possible  for  him  to  sympathize 
with  others.  In  other  words,  the  highest  develop- 
ment is  also  the  most  inclusive  ;  the  man  is  in 
harmony  with  the  universe  on  so  many  sides  that 
he  unites  in  himself  the  partial  development  of  a 
myriad  others.  There  may  be  many  paths  up  the 
mountain,  but  the  view  from  the  summit  commands 
them  all.  From  this  standpoint  it  is  easy  to  under- 
stand at  once  the  relativity  and  the  substantial 
worth  of  any  historical  ideal :  because  it  is  rela- 
tive, it  is  absolute  where  it  applies,  since  it  is 
adapted  to  the  actual  life  of  the  time.  The  ideal  a 
man  sees  is  the  light  shining  upon  his  path  ;  it  is 
binding  upon  him  because  he  does  see  it,  because 
it  is  light  upon  the  path  of  ?ds  life  ;  and  so  is  it 
with  the  epoch. 

Virtue  is  not  a  barren  mechanical  mean  between 
two  extremes,  but  a  whole  in  which  the  positive 
value  of  each  opposing  tendency  is  mysteriously 


POSITIVE  AND   NEGATIVE  IDEALS  113 

resolved.  It  is  not  half  way  between  pride  and 
tmmility,  but  includes  positive  self -reverence  with 
a  full  recognition  of  the  abyss  between  the  ideal 
and  what  one  has  attained.  Thus,  to  conquer  any 
evil  desire  or  tendency  we  need  to  cultivate  a  noble 
one.  We  bring  light  into  a  room,  not  by  closing 
the  blinds  to  the  darkness,  but  by  letting  the  light 
in.  He  who  is  consecrated  to  lofty  aims,  and  is 
untiring  in  the  pursuit  of  them,  is  little  tempted 
by  the  painted  dust  and  ashes  of  the  apples  of 
Sodom. 

The  mere  absence  of  opportunity  to  sin  is  of 
small  consequence.  It  may  save  us  from  scars  and 
stains,  but  it  can  give  no  positive  elevation  and 
holiness  to  life.  Perhaps  even  a  mingled  life, 
involving  some  failure,  is  better  than  negative  holi- 
ness ;  for  the  latter  means  nothing,  while  the 
former  may  lead,  through  struggle  and  mistake,  to 
some  positive  realization.  On  this  "checker- 
board" of  sins  and  virtues  that  is  our  life,  the  one 
great  problem  is  to  keep  moving  toward  the  king- 
row.  Every  move  is  a  new  starting  point,  and  at 
each  all  that  is  beyond  is  possible.  It  is  of  less 
consequence  what  sins  and  virtues  lie  in  the  spaces 
we  have  passed,  than  that  there  be  a  steady  pro- 
gress toward  the  best. 

There  are  two  complementary  truths,  the  full 
appreciation  of  which  is  but  beginning  to-day : 


114  POSITIVE  AND   NEGATIVE   IDEALS 

I.  There  is  no  forgiveness  for  sin  which  removes 

the  fact  of  it.     Forgiveness  is  a  quality  which 

belongs  only  to  the  spiritual  world  ;  Nature  knows 

nothing  of  it.     When  Shelley' s  Prometheus  after 

three    thousand    years    of    suffering   has    become 

human,  he  asks  to  have  repeated  the    curse  he 

uttered  against  Zeus.  When  it  is  told  him,  he  says : 

"  It  doth  repent  me :  woi'ds  are  quick  and  vain ; 
Grief  for  awhile  is  blind,  and  so  was  mine. 
I  wish  no  living  thing  to  suffer  pain." 

Then  the  earth  and  the  mountains  and  the  sea 

cry  out  that  he  is  fallen  and  vanquished ;  for  to 

Nature  there  can  be  no  forgiveness.     God  and  man 

may  forgive ;   but  this  means  that  forgiveness  is 

only  a  love  of  the  best  for  all,  which  knows  no 

spirit  of  revenge.     It  does  not  mean  that  the  fact 

of  sin  is  removed  from  the  life.     True  repentance 

changes  the  relation  of  the  individual  to  his  own 

past,  and  modifies  its  effect  upon  his  spirit,  but  the 

fact  remains  unalterable  and  irrevocable  : 

"  The  Moving  Finger  writes ;  and,  having  writ, 
Moves  on  :  nor  all  your  Piety  nor  Wit 
Shall  lure  it  back  to  cancel  half  a  Line, 
Nor  all  your  Tears  wash  out  a  Word  of  it." 

Various  forms  of  religious  teaching  have  obscured 
this  truth,  and  led  men  to  believe  that  the  past  can 
be  as  if  it  were  not.  But  for  good  or  evil  it  arches 
over  us,  to  lift  or  crush  us,  according  to  the  charac- 
ter of  our  lives. 


POSITIVE  AND   NEGATIVE   IDEALS  115 

II.  But  the  complement  of  this  truth  is  that 
to-day  is  always  a  new  beginning  of  life ;  and  the 
power  of  recovery  of  the  human  spirit  exceeds 
everything  that  men  have  dreamed.  No  artist  has 
ever  been  able,  or  has  dared,  to  express  it  in  litera- 
ture ;  for  if  he  did,  men  would  exclaim  that  his 
work  was  untrue.  It  may  be  that  a  point  is  reached 
where  a  soul  utterly  dies,  but  we  never  dare  to 
believe  that  such  a  point  is  reached,  for  ourselves 
or  for  another.  It  is  true  that  the  sin  of  yesterday 
will  not  down,  that  it  meets  us  anew  at  every  cross- 
road ;  but  it  is  equally  true  that  every  cross-road 
is  a  new  turning  point,  that  every  end  is  a  new 
beginning. 

Let  us  not  forever  return  to  dead  battle-fields  to 
fight  the  spectral  hosts  of  the  past.  There  are 
adversaries  enough  to  be  met  to-day.  After  sin, 
remorse  is  necessary  to  teach  one  the  measure  of 
one's  divergence  from  the  path  of  life  ;  but  that  is 
its  only  value.  Remorse  is  no  atonement,  though 
pain  may  expiate  by  ending  the  sin  in  oneself. 
The  only  atonement  for  sin  is  in  helpful  living  to- 
day ;  and  the  remorse  that  paralyzes  the  will,  and 
makes  it  impossible  for  us  to  act,  destroys  the  only 
atonement  we  may  offer. 

There  is  no  situation  in  human  life  where  there 
is  not  a  best  thing  to  be  done  ;  and  to  do  that  best 
thing  is  virtue.     The  one  unpardonable  sin  is  not 


116  I^OSITIVI:  AND   NEGATIVE  IDEALS 

to  act.  Nothing  is  irreparable  except  a  paralyzed 
will  and  a  heart  without  courage  and  faith,  and 
that  ceases  to  be  irreparable  the  moment  a  new 
inspiration  is  borne  in  through  love.  Love  is  the 
everlasting  worker  of  miracles.  When  all  seems 
hopeless,  and  the  soul  is  descending  upon  the  road 
that  has  no  turning,  let  it  be  awakened  to  love,  and 
immediately  all  the  forces  of  the  spiritual  world 
converge  upon  it  to  lift  it  toward  God.  Love  is 
the  savior,  love  is  the  perpetual  wonder  of  life. 

God's  sun  shines  over  us  ;  the  day  is  ours.  Shake 
off  the  shadows  of  the  night.  Look  at  the  dead 
yesterdays  only  to  see  their  final  meaning  as  they 
lie  still  in  the  pitiless  white  light  of  the  irrevoca- 
ble. But  then  turn  to  to-day  ;  and  make  every  sin 
and  every  agony  an  education,  take  the  past  up  into 
the  spirit,  and  offer  the  one  atonement — consecrated 
living  now. 

THE  DAWN. 

The  Dawn !  See  the  Dawn  in  the  far  eastern  sky ! 

We  welcome  thee,  welcome  thee,  Phoebus  Apollo ; 
The  roseate  light  ascendeth  on  high. 

We  welcome  thee,  welcome  thee,  Phoebus  Apollo. 

The  birds  that  were  silent  awake  with  the  morn, 
We  welcome  thee,  welcome  thee,  Phoebus  Apollo; 

In  thy  blessed  light  our  hearts  are  new-born. 
We  welcome  thee,  welcome  thee,  Phoebus  Apollo. 


POSITIVE   AND   NEGATIVE  IDEALS  117 

Deep  and  more  deep  the  intense-shining  light, 
We  welcome  thee,  welcome  thee,  Phoebus  Apollo; 

Till  multiplied  day  in  its  fulness  is  bright, 
We  welcome  thee,  welcome  thee,  Phoebus  Apollo. 

We  battled  with  shadows  that  peopled  the  gloom. 
We  welcome  thee,  welcome  thee,  Phoebus  Apollo; 

Our  hearts  were  oppressed  with  a  dread  sense  of  doom. 
We  welcome  thee,  welcome  thee,  Phoebus  Apollo. 

Whither  have  fled  the  grim  specters  of  Fear  ? 

We  welcome  thee,  welcome  thee,  Phoebus  Apollo; 
They  have  gone  with  the  darkness  so  deep  and  so  drear. 

We  welcome  thee,  welcome  thee,  Phoebus  Apollo. 

Gone  and  forgotten  the  fears  of  the  night. 
We  welcome  thee,  welcome  thee.  Phoebus  Apollo; 
The  darkness  was  there  but  to  deepen  the  light. 

We  welcome  thee,  welcome  thee,  Phoebus  Apollo! 


VI. 

GREEK    AND  CHRISTIAN   IDEALS 
IN  MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


THERE  are  two  historic  ideals  which  havo  a 
peculiar  signilicance  for  us,  because  of 
their  intrinsic  worth,  because  they  are 
mutually  complementary  in  a  remarkable  degree, 
and  because  they  have  ruled  alternately,  and  in 
different  degrees  of  union,  in  the  civilization  of 
Europe.  They  may  be  distinguished  broadly  as 
the  Greek  and  the  Christian  ideal. 

They  are  not  expressed  in  the  same  way,  nor  upon 
the  same  plane.  The  one  is  generic  in  the  life  of  a 
race,  the  other  is  given  directly  through  a  few  in- 
dividuals— a  single  teacher  and  his  followers — and 
is  but  slowly  embodied  in  civilization.  The  one  is 
broad  and  human,  the  other  mystical  and  spiritual; 
the  one  universal  in  range,  the  other  transcendent 
in  height ;  the  first  is  basal  in  European  civilization, 
the  second  transfigures  life,  and  gives  it  a  higher 


meaning. 


The  teaching  of  Christ  expressed  the  earlier  hopes 
and  aspirations  of  the  Jews  ;  it  carried  out  and  up 
the  noblest  part  of  the  older  Hebrew  life;  but  es- 
sentially it  was  in  strong  reaction  against  the  civi- 
lization of  the  world  into  which  it  came.  Christ 
came  not  to  destroy  the  law,  but  to  fulfil  it ;  yet  the 
fiillilnient  was  upon  a  different  plane,  in  greater 
contrast  than  likeness  with  what  had  preceded  it. 


122  GREEK   AND   CHRISTIAN   IDEALS 

The  Hebrew  hoped  for  a  worldly  kingdom  and  a 
Messiah  who  should  rule  in  splendor  an  earthly- 
realm,  reviving  the  magnificent  traditions  of  David 
and  Solomon ;  Christ  taught  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven.  The  Hebrew  believed  that  virtue  and 
obedience  to  the  will  of  God  brought  children, 
wealth,  and  long  life  on  the  earth  ;  Christ  taught 
that  the  reward  of  virtue  is  in  the  spirit,  that  the 
noblest  on  earth  are  persecuted  by  other  men. 

Nearly  every  saying  of  Jesus  is  cast  in  the  form 
of  an  implicit  or  explicit  protest  against  the  con- 
ventional thought  of  the  Jews.  The  Beatitudes 
throughout  are  an  illustration  of  this  reaction,  each 
of  them  implying  a  reproof  of  ordinary  ideas. 
•'Blessed  are,"  not  the  great,  the  magnanimous, 
but  "the  poor  in  spirit;"  not  those  whose  existence 
is  filled  with  the  joy  of  life,  but  "they  that  mourn;" 
not  the  proud,  the  rulers,  the  rich,  but "  the  meek;" 
not  those  who  seek  honor  and  advancement,  but 
"they  which  do  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteous- 
ness;" not  the  strong,  the  successful,  the  cultured, 
but  "the  merciful,"  "the  pure  in  heart,"  "the 
peace-makers;"  not  the  victorious,  the  powerful, 
but  "they  which  are  persecuted  for  righteousness' 
sake." 

Throughout  is  a  reaction  against  the  old  Hebrew 
teaching  that  external  activity  and  success  are  the 
measure  of  the  moral  life  ;  and  the  emphasis  is 


IN   MODERN   CIVILIZATION  123 

placed  on  the  higher  morality  of  the  spirit,  which 
is  not  to  be  estimated  by  the  standards  of  this 
world.  The  edicts  of  the  old  Jewish  law  are  all 
concerning  action :  they  are  definite  rules  as  to  what 
must  be  done,  and  still  more  what  must  not  be 
done.  There  are  but  slight  suggestions  of  the  con- 
ception that  the  spirit  behind  a  deed  determines 
its  value.  But  in  Christ's  teaching  the  whole  em- 
phasis is  on  the  spirit :  "Ye  have  heard  that  it  was 
said  by  them  of  old  time,  Thou  shalt  not  kill,  *  *  * 
But  I  say  unto  you  that  whosoever  is  angry  with 
his  brother  without  a  cause  shall  be  in  danger  of 
the  judgment."  "  Ye  have  heard  that  it  was  said 
by  them  of  old  time,  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adul- 
tery :  But  I  say  unto  you  that  whosoever  looketh 
upon  a  woman  to  lust  after  her  hath  committed 
adultery  with  her  already  in  his  heart."  "Ye  have 
heard  that  it  hath  been  said,  An  eye  for  an  eye, 
and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth  :  But  I  say  unto  you.  That 
ye  resist  not  evil ;  but  whosoever  shall  smite  thee 
on  thy  right  cheek,  turn  to  him  the  other  also." 

The  two  supreme  commandments  contain  all  the 
law  and  the  prophets,  because  obeyed  they  give  the 
spirit  from  which  noble  action  inevitably  flows. 
The  morality  of  the  spirit  is  less  definite  in  its  pre- 
scripts than  that  of  conduct ;  but  for  that  very 
reason  it  is  nearer  to  life.  For  every  moral  situa- 
tion is  a  complex  thing,  and  is  not  to  be  solved  by 


124  GREEK   AND   CHRISTIAN   IDEALS 

the  application  of  simple  rules.  The  best  rule  we 
have  is  not  a  rule  at  all,  but  is  simply  the  announce- 
ment of  a  principle:  "Whatsoever  ye  would  that 
men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them."  It 
does  not  tell  us  what  to  do,  it  merely  indicates  the 
right  attitude  of  the  spirit,  and  leaves  us  to  choose 
the  appropriate  deed.  This  is  true  of  all  the  pre- 
cepts in  the  teaching  of  Jesus  ;  the  Christian  mor- 
ality throughout  is  always  the  morality  of  the 
spirit. 

Yet  Christ's  teachings  express  in  a  large  degree 
the  doctrine  of  escape  that  marks  Buddhistic  ethics. 
The  world  is  looked  upon  as  evil,  the  whole  physi- 
cal and  aesthetic  life   is   regarded  as    hindering 
rather  than  helping  the  soul,  the  pursuit  of  knowl- 
edge is  not  considered  a  worthy  end  of  life.     The 
emphasis    is    everywhere    on    self-abnegation,    a 
complete  disregard  of  ordinary  affairs,  and  an  all- 
absorbing  interest  in  the  spiritual.      The  actual 
human  life  in  the  things  of  this  world  is  regarded 
as  vanity  :  "  Take  no  thought,  saying.  What  shall 
we  eat  ?    or,   What  shall    we    drink  ?   or,  Where- 
withal shall  we  be  clothed  ?    But  seek  ye  first  the 
kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteousness."   "  Verily 
I  say  unto  you.  That  a  rich  man  shall  hardly  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  heaven."     "It  is  easier  for  a 
camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle,  than  for  a 
rich  man  to  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God," 


IN   MODERN   CIVILIZATION  125 

There  are  many  such  sayings,  while  the  ideal  of 
the  harmonious  development  of  all  the  possibilities 
of  human  nature  in  a  rounded  life  never  appears 
once  in  the  teachings  of  Christ  and  his  immediate 
followers.  One  cannot  imagine  any  one  of  them 
painting  a  picture,  writing  a  dramatic  poem  or  a 
scientihc  treatise.  They  had  no  time  for  such  ac- 
tivities, the  interests  of  the  kingdom  of  the  sx^irir 
were  so  all-absorbing  that  they  could  not  think  of 
even  the  highest  things  that  bring  a  more  complete 
life  here. 

All  this  is  narrowness,  yet  a  noble  narrowness 
that  saves  the  world.  From  time  to  time  there 
comes  a  revival  of  pure  Christianity,  which  is  so 
overwhelmingly  impressed  with  the  all  importance 
of  the  spiritual,  that  it  cannot  conceive  anything 
else.  This  revival  is  found  in  Saint  Francis, 
Thomas  a  Kempis,  Tolstoi,  and  many  others — 
men  who  see  only  the  higher  saving  part.  Such 
men  are  the  literal  followers  of  Christ,  and  in  them 
the  results  of  his  teaching  appear  with  less  of  the 
balancing  elements  which  were  present  in  the  per- 
sonality of  Jesus.  Hence  in  them  the  limitations 
of  Christian  teaching  may  be  seen  more  clearly 
than  in  the  life  of  the  founder.  The  same  is  true 
of  the  world  immediately  following  Christ :  there 
his  teachings  were  carried  out  in  their  own  peculiar 
line  to  the  extreme.     The  broad  humanity  of  Jesus 


126  GREEK   AND   CHRISTIAN   IDEALS 

and  his  universally  noble  spirit  made  him  avoid 
dogma,  and  suggest  many  inspiring  thoughts  aside 
from  the  main  tenor  of  his  teaching.  We  have  the 
story  of  the  Cana  wedding  and  the  blessing  of 
children.  His  sympathies  were  alive,  he  loved 
common  life,  he  appreciated  much  that  to  him 
seemed  of  very  secondary  importance.  But  his 
central  teachings  were  carried  out  by  men  of  nar- 
rower sympathy  and  lesser  insight.  In  them  the 
humanity  of  Jesus  is  gradually  lost  in  dogma ;  the 
beauty  of  the  spiritual  life  apart  from  the  world  is 
hardened  into  the  monastic  system  ;  the  emphasis 
of  the  spiritual  shows  in  a  disregard  for  culture 
and  science,  an  intolerance  toward  the  growth  into 
larger  and  larger  truth. 

In  all,  it  is  evident  that  the  dominant  tendency  of 
Christ's  teaching  was  toward  self-abnegation  as 
opposed  to  self-realization,  toward  the  spiritual 
alone  as  opposed  to  a  harmony  of  sense  and  soul, 
toward  the  uplifting  of  a  side  rather  than  the 
broadening  of  the  whole  of  human  life. 

This  teaching  was  singularly  adapted  to  the 
world  over  which  it  spread.  It  was  a  world  of 
hopelessness  and  despair ;  everywhere  were  the  evi- 
dences of  decay  ;  oppression  and  poverty  beneath ; 
debauchery  and  reckless  abandonment  to  the  senses 
above.  Any  reflecting  man  could  see  that  to-mor- 
row would  be  worse  than  to-day.  There  was  nothing 


IN   MODERN   CIVILIZATION  127 

to  incite  to  noble  positive  action ;  there  was  no 
hope  for  the  future  ;  everything  whispered  of  de- 
cay and  death.  Here  and  there  men  reacted  against 
it  all:  the  Stoic  taught  a  quiet  endurance;  the  Epicu- 
rean preached  the  pleasures  of  the  hour;  but  no  gen- 
eral solution  was  given.  Over  such  a  world  spread 
Christianity  with  its  doctrine  of  self-abnegation 
and  its  gospel  of  the  spirit.  It  accepted  the  world  as 
a  failure ;  but  taught  that  in  the  kingdom  of  the 
spirit  is  everlasting  life.  It  accepted  the  fact  of 
the  vanity  of  all  earthly  endeavor,  all  worldly 
happiness ;  but  taught  that  in  self-sacrifice  and 
sel'f-forgetfulness,  in  the  love  of  God  and  love  of 
man,  in  the  life  of  the  spirit,  lay  a  "peace  that 
passeth  understanding."  Quickly  in  its  teaching 
the  opposition  between  this  world  and  the  next 
became  definite.  The  sublime  acceptance  of  the 
spiritual  by  Jesus  was  hardened  into  a  dogma  of 
immortality  and  heaven.  More  and  more  Christi- 
anity became  a  doctrine  of  escape. 

Its  power  and  helpfulness  can  scarcely  be  under- 
stood to-day.  To  be  sure,  it  did  not  affect  imme- 
diately the  upper  classes.  It  was  in  profound 
opposition  to  the  noblest  principle  of  ancient  life — 
the  pursuit  of  culture  and  self-realization.  It  was 
natural  that  they  should  scorn  this  gospel  of  escape 
as  ignoble,  a  superstition  of  the  vulgar.  But  to 
the  humble  and  oppressed  it  came  with  the  precious 


128  GREE«:   AlfD   CHRISTIAN    IDEALS 

blessing  of  peace.  They  could  not  hope  for 
culture  and  freedom,  self-realization  was  out  of  the 
question  for  them.  A  compensation  for  the  failure 
of  life  here  was  possible  only  by  taking  refuge  in 
a  life  not  of  this  world,  not  of  intelligence,  of  pro- 
gress and  culture,  but  a  life  purely  of  the  spirit, 
and  reaching  its  satisfaction  only  in  the  hereafter. 
Such  was  the  relation  of  Christ' s  teaching  to  the 
life  of  the  early  centuries  of  Christianity  :  in  pro- 
found opposition  to  the  principles  of  ancient  civili- 
zation, it  came  as  a  refuge  and  consolation  to  the 
men  who  found  that  civilization  decaying  on  every 
hand.  It  gave  an  iniinite  sicrnificance  to  every 
humblest  human  being,  because  each  was  an  im- 
mortal soul  in  the  image  of  God.  Its  gospel  of 
purity,  of  love,  of  human  brotherhood  was  above 
anything  of  which  the  ancient  world  had  dreamed. 

In  supreme  contrast  with  the  ideals  of  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus  are  those  which  appear  in  the  old  Greek 
world ;  and  the  effect  of  these  upon  the  life  of 
humanity  has  been  second  only  to  those  of  Christ. 
The  Greeks  never  attained  a  spiritual  conception 
of  life  ;  their  highest  thought  was  of  the  harmoni- 
ous development  of  mental  and  physical  faculties. 
This  is  evident  from  the  whole  course  of  Greek 
education.  Gymnastic  and  music  were  to  form  the 
*'sane  mind  in  the  sound  body."      The  theoretic 


IN   MODERN   CIVILIZATION  12^ 

development  of  this  idea  in  Plato's  Republic  was 
no  more  definite  and  complete  than  the  actual  prac- 
tice of  education  in  all  periods  of  Greek  civiliza- 
tion. The  devotion  to  science  and  art  is  an  evidence 
of  the  desire  to  develop  roundedly  the  individual 
life;  for  it  is  these  that  add  beauty  and  depth  to 
personal  existence. 

The  splendid  men  and  women  of  ancient  Greece, 
noble  animals  as  they  were,  are  still  the  wonder  of 
the  world  ;  and  the  statues  embodying  in  idealized 
form  their  balanced  harmony  of  mind  and  body  are 
yet  the  unattained  marvels  of  sculpture.  The 
Sophocles  of  the  Lateran  is  an  admirable  example 
of  the  type  of  manhood  toward  which  the  Greeks 
aspired.  The  figure  is  erect,  beautifully  projDor- 
tioned  and  gracefully  draped.  The  head  is  noble, 
the  face  showing  a  union  of  power  and  self-control, 
together  with  a  glad  joy  in  life.  There  is  no  great 
aspiration,  no  profound  spirituality  in  this  statue, 
but  that  serene  and  balanced  harmony  of  mind  and 
body  which  was  the  highest  ideal  in  ancient  life. 

The  Greeks  united  the  natural  freshness  of  child- 
hood with  the  grave  wisdom  of  culture  and  the 
power  of  adult  life.  They  were  never  over-self- 
conscious  or  morbidly  reflective.  They  seem,  to  a 
self-torturing  Christian  civilization,  gifted  with 
everlasting  youth  ;  and  they  were  indeed  anxious 
not  to  see  or  think  of  old  age,  which  seemed  to 


130  GREEK   AKD   CHRISTIAN   IDEALS 

them  little  less  ugly  and  dreadful  than  death. 
Moral  evil  was  regarded  only  from  the  aesthetic 
point  of  view,  to  be  avoided  as  ugly.  The  Good 
was  the  Beautiful,  to  be  sought  because  pleasant 
and  harmonious  to  a  normal  sensibility. 

The  chief  virtue  in  Plato's  system  was  justice, 
which,  as  he  conceived  it,  was  the  harmony  of 
activities  in  the  individual,  and  of  individuals  in 
the  social  whole.  It  is  the  virtue  which  must  be 
prominent  in  a  healthy,  active  life  in  this  world. 
The  other  cardinal  virtues— temperance,  prudence 
and  fortitude — were  all  virtues  of  action. 

In  Aristotle's  system  magnanimity  occupies  the 
supreme  place.  As  he  interprets  it,  this  means 
that  large-mindedness  which  should  govern  a  pros- 
perous, well-developed  man  in  his  attitude  toward 
others.  Aristotle  frankly  states  that  a  man  cannot 
attain  the  highest  virtue  without  wealth  and 
*  friends  ;  and  the  humility  which  became  a  central 
virtue  in  Christianity  was  to  him  a  contemptible 
groveling  upon  the  ground,  as  remote  from  the  true 
mean  of  magnanimity  as  the  opposite  extreme  of 
inordinate  pride. 

It  is  significant  that  all  Greek  art  was  statuesque 
in  character.  Sculpture  is  the  simplest  of  the  arts  ; 
it  represents  form  directly  and  without  any  of  the 
illusions  of  perspective  which  add  so  immeasarably 
to  the  range  of  plastic  expression  in  painting.     But 


IN  MODERN   CIVILIZATION"  131 

because  of  its  very  limitations,  sculpture  is  the 
most  adequate  of  the  arts  in  the  representation  of 
its  subject-matter.  Prevented  from  attempting 
unattainable  ideals,  narrowly  limited  in  choice  of 
subject  and  conditions  of  execution,  it  can  attain 
a  more  perfect  harmony  of  content  and  form  than 
is  possible  to  the  other  arts,  dealing  as  they  do  with 
a  subject-matter  vastly  wider  and  more  complex. 
That  sculpture  is  the  typical  art  of  Greece,  toward 
whose  aims  and  tendencies  all  other  arts  converge, 
is  expressive  of  the  fundamental  character  of 
Greek  life.  Painting  with  its  world  of  illusions 
for  the  fancy,  its  sensuous  wealth  of  color,  em- 
bodies the  spirit  of  Italy  ;  Germany  finds  artistic 
expression  for  her  deep,  vague,  imaginative  dreams 
and  aspirations  in  music;  England,  with  a  practical, 
utilitarian  interest  in  life  and  action,  was  most 
fully  embodied  in  the  drama ;  but  the  form-loving 
Greek,  seeking  limited  ideals,  and  valuing  every- 
where harmony  of  content  and  execution,  lived, 
wrote  and  sang  with  statuesque  simplicity,  reserve 
and  harmony.  His  music  was  formal  rather  than 
melodic,  with  little  of  the  emotional  depth  and 
complexity  that  makes  modern  music  so  intimate 
an  interpreter  of  personal  life.  His  architecture  in 
its  simjjlicity  and  beauty  was  thoroughly  in  har- 
mony with  sculpture  in  aim  and  method.  Painting 
was  developed  late,  and  in  choice  of  subject  and 


132  GREEK   AND   CHRISTIAN   IDEALS 

execution  alike  was  statuesque  in  character.  Greek 
poetry  displayed  idealized  types,  rather  than  actual 
men  and  women ;  and  these  types  were  presented 
with  the  restraint  and  harmony  and  the  perfection 
of  form  so  characteristic  of  sculpture.  Life-like 
as  are  the  men  and  women  of  Homer, — Achilles, 
Nestor,  Ulysses,  Helen,  Penelope,  Nausicaa  repeat 
the  differentiated  types  of  character  expressed  in 
the  gods  of  Olympus,  and  the  same  idealized  eleva- 
tion above  the  plane  of  ordinary  life  is  evident. 
In  the  dramatists  this  tendency  is  carried  further, 
with  the  exception  of  Euripides,  who  came  late 
and  is  least  characteristic  of  the  fundamentally 
Greek  genius.  Even  philosophy,  in  the  poetic 
harmony  and  elevation  of  the  Platonic  dialogue, 
or  the  reserve  and  completeness  of  the  Aristotelian 
analysis,  showed  the  same  statuesque  quality. 

Transcendent  ideals,  which  produce  discontent 
and  unavoidable  struggle,  are  entirely  absent  from 
the  Greek  world,  and  so  are  the  insanity  and  one- 
sidedness  which  result  from  them.  Asceticism  was 
never  a  normal  phase  of  Greek  life,  though  it  crept 
in  from  Asia  here  and  there.  The  chief  vices  were 
those  of  self-indulgence,  the  excesses  of  pleasure- 
seeking.  In  every  phase  of  his  activity  the  Greek 
sought  a  limited  ideal,  and  attained  it  adequately. 
The  serene  perfection  of  rounded  art  is  the  charm 
at  once  of  the  Iliad  and  Antigone,  of  the  sculptures 


IN   MODERN   CIVILIZATION  133 

of  the  Greeks  and  of  their  wonderful  temples:  a 
limited  ideal  adequately  realized. 

I  shall  not  soon  forget  my  first  impression  of  the 
marvelous  temple  of  Poseidon  at  Psestum.  It 
stood  there  in  the  green,  unpeopled  plain,  in  the 
transcendent  beauty  of  perfect  simplicity,  its  stone 
mellowed  by  time,  with  the  serene  sky  overhead, 
the  blue  sea  at  its  feet,  and  the  wonderful  semi- 
circle of  mountains  in  the  background.  To  look 
upon  it  was  perfect  rest.  There  was  no  sense  of 
the  unattainable  nor  of  the  unattained.  There  was 
no  sign  of  struggle,  only  the  ease  of  perfect  mas- 
tery and  the  serenity  of  complete  achievement. 
The  adequate  realization  of  a  limited  ideal :  it  was 
this  that  the  Greek  attained  in  every  phase  of  his 
activity,  it  was  this  he  expressed  in  individual  life. 

How  different  the  Christian  ideal  perpetuated  in 
stone  in  the  mediaeval  cathedral.  When  one  first 
stands  before  a  temple  of  the  middle  ages,  one  is 
overwhelmed  by  the  myriad  forms  and  the  vastness 
of  the  structure.  One  goes  about  it  from  one  point 
of  view  to  another,  finding  it  impossible  to  grasp 
the  whole  as  a  unity.  Everywhere  is  careful  and 
detailed  decoration,  hundreds  of  statues,  grotesque 
or  beautiful,  terrible  or  transfigured.  The  spires, 
fit  symbol  of  aspiration,  reach  up  toward  the  sky. 
One  enters,  and  is  both  depressed  and  exalted  by 
the  majesty  of  the  interior.     The  forest  of  columns 


134  GREEK   AND   CHRISTIAN   IDEALS 

stretches  away,  the  vaulted  Gothic  roof  rises  vastly 
above  one,  the  mingled  light  from  the  stained 
windows  gives  depth  and  wonder  to  the  great  open 
spaces.  One  cries  out  with  deeper  feeling  than  the 
prophet  of  old,  "What  is  man,  that  Thou  art 
mindful  of  him  !" 

As  there  is  no  touch  of  this  vast  complexity  of 
deep  impressions  in  Greek  art,  so  there  is  nothing 
of  the  self-abasement  in  Greek  life.  Unaware  of 
the  heights  of  which  the  human  spirit  is  capable, 
the  Greek  was  unconscious  of  the  possible  depths 
of  sin,  and  untroubled  by  the  bitterness  of  failure. 
The  serene  beauty  which  characterizes  everything 
in  the  Greek  world  is  the  charm  of  that  perfect 
harmony  of  ideal  and  execution,  of  soul  and  form, 
which  has  never  since  been  attained. 

The  want  in  this  noble  ideal  of  culture,  of  self- 
development,  which  the  Greek  held,  was  the 
supreme  truth  of  Christ's  teaching,  that  the  high- 
est self-realization  may  come  in  certain  cases 
only  by  self-abnegation,  that  the  crown  of  justice 
is  love,  that  the  loftiest  spiritual  life  is  the  last 
perfection  of  the  individual.  This  Christian  thought 
carried  with  it  an  infinite  ideal,  and  banished  for- 
ever the  satisfied  completeness  of  the  Greek. 
Henceforth  aspiration  and  struggle,  infinite  thirst 
for  unattained  ends,  were  to  be  present  in  human 
life.     The  non-moral  quality  of  the  Greeks,  char- 


ITT   MODERIS-   CIVILIZATION  135 

acteristic  of  birds  and  flowers  and  children,  passed 
away,  and  at  one  stroke  the  world  of  black  failure 
and  the  world  of  transcendent  spiritual  attainment 
were  opened  to  the  ravished  vision  of  man.  The 
terrible  moral  dualism  of  the  middle  ages  is  but 
the  inevitable  result.  It  seemed  that  only  through 
a  war  of  different  elements  in  man,  the  struggle  of 
the  human  spirit  with  itself,  was  possible  that 
deepening  of  the  content  of  life  which  gives 
modern  civilization  its  wealth  of  meaning,  so  want- 
ing in  the  Greek  world.  As  the  adult,  without 
losing  his  wisdom  and  positive  virtue,  must  attain 
the  simple  acceptance  of  life  of  a  child,  if  he  is  to 
enter  into  the  kingdom  of  the  spirit ;  so  if  the 
modern  man  can,  without  sacrificing  the  depth  and 
content  of  his  life,  attain  the  fresh  youthfulness 
and  harmony  of  existence  of  the  Greek,  with  the 
latter' s  freedom  from  morbid  introspection  and 
over-self-consciousness,  an  ideal  of  life  will  be 
realized  higher  than  the  Greek  or  the  Christian, 
because  uniting  the  significance,  and  avoiding  the 
limitations,  of  both.  A  blind,  unreasoning  love 
may  easily  result  in  fanaticism  and  folly ;  it  must 
be  balanced  by  wisdom.  On  the  other  hand,  knowl- 
edge without  love  ends  in  isolation  and  death. 
Both  j)rinciples  are  needed  ;  of  these  the  higher 
one  of  love  is  emphasized  by  Christ's  teaching, 
the  other  finds  characteristic  expression  in  Greek 
life  aud  in  phases  oi  modern  teaching. 


136  GREEK   AND   CHEISTIAN   IDEALS 

In  the  middle  ages  we  find  these  two  ideals  in 
conflict,  and  struggling  at  times  up  toward  a  higher 
union.  The  Christian  ideal  is  usually  dominant, 
but  not  always  so.  Beside  the  church,  with  its 
monastic  life,  is  feudalism  and  chivalry.  Beside 
the  life  of  the  spirit,  which  renounces  the  world 
and  the  flesh,  is  the  life  of  love'and  war  and  adven- 
ture. The  hunger  for  knowledge,  stigmatized 
sometimes  as  "the  black  art,"  struggled  on  beneath 
the  surface,  fought  its  way  up  in  spite  of  persecu- 
tion even  into  the  dogmas  of  the  church,  and  com- 
pelled the  acceptance  of  Aristotle  side  by  side 
with  the  Christian  fathers.  Strangely  enough,  the 
opposing  principles  flnd  an  anomalous  union  in  the 
Crusades — wars  carried  on  for  religious  aims  under 
the  banner  of  the  religion  of  peace. 

The  opposition  of  which  I  speak  can  be  traced 
in  many  things.  Only  with  the  renaissance  does 
the  Greek  ideal  assert  itself  for  the  time  greatly 
above  the  other.  In  that  splendid  expansion  of 
life  was  an  inevitable  reaffirmation  of  pagan  ideals 
— the  ideals  of  culture  and  self-realization.  The 
renaissance  was  fundamentally  non- Christian,  yet 
strong  Christian  elements  were  present,  even  in  the 
Italian  phase  of  it.  The  dominant  attitude  was 
Greek,  but  the  plane  of  life  was  altogether  differ- 
ent from  that  of  ancient  civilization.  Beside  laugh- 
ing Fra  Lippo  Lippi  is  the  saintly  Fra  Angelico. 


IN    MODERN   CIVILIZATION  137 

At  the  very  height  of  the  pagan  renaissance  arises 
Savonarola,  the  great  moral  reformer,  and  attempts 
to  check  the  stream  of  progress,  as  Moses  forced 
back  the  waters  of  the  Red  Sea.  The  most  mas- 
culine of  all  the  artists  of  the  period,  unless  we 
except  Leonardo,  Michael  Angelo,  is  full  of  the 
sombre  dualism  of  Dante,  and  from  the  ceiling  of 
the  Sistine  chapel  smites  us  into  the  dust  w^ith  the 
ethical  spirit  of  the  middle  ages. 

From  Italy  the  spirit  of  the  renaissance  was  car- 
ried over  Europe.  In  (xermany  it  entered,  in 
the  Reformation,  even  into  the  religious  life  itself. 
In  France,  later,  it  took  political  and  social  shape 
in  the  revolution.  All  subsequent  periods  have 
been  waves  of  the  renaissance ;  and  since  the 
fifteenth  century  Greek  and  Christian  ideals  have 
found  some  measure  of  union  in  all  European 
civilization. 

Both  principles  are  necessary  to  the  fullest  life. 
To  follow  unreservedly  the  ethics  of  self-abnegation 
found  in  the  teaching  of  Christ,  would  be  to  destroy 
a  large  part  of  what  we  hold  most  valuable  in 
modern  civilization.  Not  only  all  invention  and 
discovery,  but  progress  in  science  and  art,  the 
development  of  complex  social  institutions,  the 
increase  of  wants  and  answers  to  them,  the  life  of 
intelligence  and  culture, — all  these  are  foreign  to 
the  spirit  of  Christian  ethics.     On  the  other  hand 


138  GREEK    AND    CHRISTIAN    IDEALS 

the  freeing  of  slaves,  the  emphasis  of  social  purity, 
the  raising  of  moral  standards,  the  growth  of 
humanity,  the  simplification  and  spiritual  uplift- 
ing of  life, — all  these  are  the  natural  result  of  the 
ideal  taught  by  Christ. 

The  relation  of  the  two  ideals  to  our  civilization 
is  then  evident :  the  Christian  teaching  is  a  force, 
a  priceless  one,  but  not  the  whole.  It  emphasizes 
the  saving  principle,  without  it  the  rest  can  end 
only  in  selfish  excess  ;  but  if  unbalanced  by  other 
principles  it  would  destroy  much  that  we  hold  most 
valuable  in  modern  life.  Our  study  of  its  place 
only  emphasizes  the  more  strongly  the  great  prin- 
ciple that  the  moral  life  is  a  harmony,  in  which  the 
different  positive  elements  of  human  nature  are 
realized  in  a  symmetrical  whole.  It  also  emphasizes 
that  other  fact  that  no  human  life  at  any  time  is  an 
adequate  expression  of  all  sides  of  human  nature, 
and  that  the  problem  before  each  of  us  is  the 
realization  of  as  rounded  and  complete  a  whole  as 
possible,  without  the  sacrifice  of  any  part. 

Thus  the  basis  of  the  best  life  possible  to  us  is 
perhaps  Greek  rather  than  Christian.  If  the 
Christian  ideal  be  the  higher,  the  Greek  is  the 
larger  and  saner  one.  On  a  low  plane  these  seem 
in  conflict,  on  a  high  plane  it  is  possible  to  in- 
tegrate them  in  the  unity  of  the  spirit.  That  a 
higher  thing  should  never  be  sacrificed  tp  a  Jower 


IN   MODERN   CIVILIZATION  139 

is  certain  ;  but  in  place  of  the  shallowness  and  per- 
fidy of  a  degenerate  Greek,  and  the  ascetic  narrow- 
ness and  fanaticism  of  the  negative  Christian,  let 
us  seek  the  nobler  humanity  that  is  refined  and 
cultured  without  being  false,  and  that  is  capable  of 
infinite  self-sacrifice  and  a  purity  of  spiritual  life, 
without  neglecting  the  realization  of  all  the  powers 
for  rounded  existence  in  this  world  that  belong  to 
men. 

This  higher  union  of  Greek  and  Christian  ideals 
does  not  mean  a  mere  eclecticism  which  seeks  here 
a  piece  and  there  a  piece  for  its  patchwork  of  life. 
Rather  it  means  that  these  two  ideals  may  be  fused 
into  a  higher  union  in  the  personality  of  the  indi- 
vidual. This  is  as  different  from  such  eclecticism 
as  a  growing  tree  is  different  from  a  pile  of  boards. 
The  wood  may  be  brought  from  many  directions, 
but  heaped  up  together  it  is  merely  one  large  mass 
of  rubbish  ;  the  tree  draws  its  nourishment  from 
light  and  air  and  water  and  earth,  but  turns  all 
that  it  receives  into  its  own  growing  life.  The 
tree  is  not  an  unsightly  collection  of  disintegrated 
elements,  it  is  one  living  whole. 

Similar  is  the  ideal  of  the  individual  life.  A  man 
should  be  open  to  all  the  worlds  of  influence  on 
every  side,  he  should  accept  good  from  every 
direction,  but  he  should  turn  all  that  he  receives 
iuto  his  j^rowin^  life.    He  will  seek  Bot  to  be 


140  GEEEK   AND   CHEISTIAN   IDEALS 

merely  an  expression  of  some  movement  of  action 
or  reaction,  but  to  make  his  life  inclusive.  His 
attitude  toward  others  will  be  one  of  sympathetic 
appreciation.  He  will  be  open  to  truth  from  every 
direction,  and  will  be  opposed  to  nothing  that  is 
good.  Not  only  will  Greek  and  Christian  ideals 
be  united  in  him,  but  many  others  as  well. 

We  stand  on  the  vantage-ground  of  the  centuries ; 
all  that  the  world  has  attained  is  so  much  possi- 
bility of  life  for  us.  From  us  is  demanded  vastly 
more  than  from  the  men  of  the  past,  for  opportu- 
nity is  responsibility.  What  the  world  has  worked 
out  as  true  is  our  heritage,  and  is  the  basis  from 
which  we  must  go  on  to  higher  truth.  We  may 
see  to-day  that,  higher  than  the  Greek  or  the 
Christian  ideal,  is  the  Greek  ideal  transfigured  by 
the  teaching  of  Christ :  the  ideal  of  rounded,  har- 
monious self- development,  of  high  culture,  crowned 
by  the  noblest  spiritual  purity,  the  largest  love, 
and  a  capacity  for  self-abnegation  when  that  is  th& 
path  of  life. 

Such  an  ideal  is  not  easily  attained  :  it  demands 
a  balance  of  many  tendencies.  It  is  easier  to  be 
ascetic  than  to  be  temperate  ;  it  is  easier  to  be 
fanatical  than  wise  ;  it  is  easier  to  be  immorally 
self-sacrificing  than  to  choose  the  best  for  all.  The 
chief  cause  of  this  difficulty  is  that  the  path  of  the 
fullest  life  cannot  be  marked  out  by  rules.    For  an 


IN   MODERN   CIVILIZATION  141 

ascetic,  a  sensualist,  a  fanatic,  rules  suffice ;  but 
when  the  ideal  is  the  harmonious  realization  of  con- 
flicting elements,  every  case  is  a  special  case,  and 
the  general  laws  we  must  follow  only  point  the 
way,  without  solving  the  specific  problem.  Hence 
we  are  thrown  back  upon  ourselves,  and  must 
choose  upon  the  basis  of  our  own  insight  and  wis- 
dom. This  means  many  errors,  but  it  also  means 
learning  step  by  step  the  path  and  the  meaning  of 
life.  Every  natural  tendency  is  good  when  in 
proper  relation  ;  and  each  may  be  bad  when  devel- 
oped to  the  extreme.  Emotion  is  the  bond  which 
unites  men  in  love  and  sympathy,  but  apart  and 
wrongly  developed  it  is  sentimentality  and  weak- 
ness. Intellect  is  our  door  to  truth,  it  reveals  the 
universe  to  us,  but  developed  alone  it  ends  in  a 
cold  and  deadening  isolation.  So  self-culture 
apart  becomes  selfishness,  the  service  of  others, 
when  out  of  relation,  becomes  dissipating  and  im- 
moral self-sacrifice.  Justice  can  be  degraded  into 
cruelty,  love  into  weakness.  The  true  life  is  a  har- 
mony of  diverse  elements :  it  is  at  once  intellect 
and  emotion  ;  it  involves  both  justice  and  love ;  it 
realizes  the  noblest  self-culture  and  the  largest 
service  of  others. 

Every  struggle  onward  of  man  or  epoch  enlarges 
the  bounds  of  human  life  and  makes  a  larger  and 
larger  attainment  possible.     The  culture-seeking 


142  GREEK   AND  CHRISTIAN   IDEALS 

of  the  Greek,  his  love  and  creation  of  beauty, 
his  harmonious  development  of  sense  life,  are  be- 
hind us,  and  must  be  included  in  the  whole  of  our 
life. 

The  spiritual  purity  of  Christ,  the  all-embracing 
love  for  humanity,  the  living  for  others  and  for 
eternity  rather  than  for  time,  this  is  behind  us, 
and  must  enter  into  the  whole  of  our  life. 

The  struggle  of  Buddha  to  find  the  way  of  life, 
his  recognition  of  the  eternity  of  every  deed  as  a 
fate  ruling  us,  his  pity  and  his  tenderness,  these 
are  behind  us,  and  must  enter  into  our  life. 

The  long  centuries  of  struggle,  of  spiritual 
aspiration,  of  faith,  these  too  have  a  meaning  and 
a  place  for  us.  The  human  awakening  of  the 
renaissance,  the  rebirth  of  nature  and  the  senses, 
the  rediscovery  of  life  in  this  world,  of  the  sweet- 
ness of  pleasure  and  the  glory  and  the  innocence 
of  the  sense-life,  this  too  we  must  include  in  the 
largest  moral  ideal  of  existence. 

The  impossible  ideal  of  knowing  all,  of  realizing 
the  perfect  love,  of  seeing  and  creating  the  eternal 
beauty,  of  serving  all  who  touch  oar  lives,  of  ab- 
solute fidelity  to  our  highest  thought, — this  impos- 
sible ideal  is  the  goal  toward  which  we  must  strive, 
and  the  higher  and  higher  approximation  to  it 
alone  gives  worth  and  meaning  to  life. 


VII. 

THE   MODERN  CHANGE   IN  IDEALS  OF 
WOMANHOOD 


IF  one  of  the  best  tests  of  civilization  be  the  meas- 
ure of  freedom  given  to  women,  the  nineteenth 
century  has  gone  further  in  all  the  higher 
things  of  life  than  any  preceding  one.  This  is  par- 
ticularly the  epoch  of  women,  and  most  startling 
changes  have  been  taking  place  in  all  that  concerns 
the  problems  of  their  lives.  At  the  same  time 
there  is  little  clear  thinking  upon  the  questions 
involved  ;  and  together  with  much  that  is  valuable, 
a  great  amount  of  futile  discussion  has  accumu- 
lated about  the  subject.  The  consideration  has 
been  carried  on  largely  from  two  points  of  view. 
It  has  given  birth  in  the  first  place  to  a  mass  of 
so-called  scientific  literature,  which  has  suffered 
from  the  mistaken  notion  that  any  fact  of  the  higher 
human  life  is  reduced  to  the  plane  of  its  antecedent 
causes  when  these  are  discovered.  This  has 
led  many  to  speak  with  contempt  of  the  nobler 
human  developments  in  all  relations  of  the  family 
and  in  everything  concerning  the  higher  activities 
of  women.  The  importance  of  the  earlier  biological 
factors  has  seemed  so  great  that  all  developments 
from  this  basis  have  been  regarded  as  more  or  less 
illusory. 

Opposed  to  this  body  of   literature   is  the  large 
number  of  books  written  by  people  without  scientific 


146  THE  MODERN  CHANGE  IN 

training,  and  with  no  consciousness  of  the  vast 
biological  history  that  antedates  our  present  social 
conditions.  These  reformers  have  been  excited 
by  the  wrongs  of  the  present,  and  have  never 
questioned  the  possibility  of  remolding  human 
nature  by  some  sudden  scheme.  It  has  seemed  to 
them  possible  to  accomplish  at  once  social  changes 
which  would  involve  an  entire  revolution  in  funda- 
mental instincts,  resulting  from  untold  centuries 
of  biological  selection.  The  vagaries  and  fanati- 
cisms upon  this  side  have  hampered  the  clear 
understanding  of  the  whole  problem  as  much  as 
the  narrowness  and  dogmatism  upon  the  other. 

It  is  not  easy  to  escape  these  opposing  difficulties. 
Every  question  concerning  the  life  of  women 
is  intimately  connected  with  all  that  is  most 
fundamental  in  civilization.  It  is  impossible  to 
separate  one  element  of  the  problem  and  treat  it 
understandingly.  The  significance  of  every  frag- 
ment is  evident  only  when  it  is  seen  in  the  light  of 
the  larger  history  of  the  human  spirit.  The  whole 
problem  of  human  development  includes,  and  re- 
solves into  a  unity,  the  questions  concerning  the 
progress  of  men  and  women.  If  various  forms  of 
selection  have  been  working  toward  the  production 
of  highly  differentiated  sex  types,  opposed  to  these 
have  been  certain  powerful  effects  of  heredity, 
and  as  well  the  larger  unity  of  the  human  spirit. 


IDEALS   OF   WOMANHOOD  147 

That  there  are  profound  differences  between  men 
and  women  no  one  questions,  but  these  are  more  or 
less  resolved  in  the  human  being.  Whenever  a 
generalization  is  made,  attempting  to  differentiate 
the  two  types,  there  are  exceptions  to  it.  Any 
tendency  that  is  characteristic  of  women  is  found 
in  high  development  in  some  men  ;  and  whatever 
qualities  of  character  are  in  men  are  present  in 
some  women. 

The  fundamental  differences  go  back  to  primitive 
sex  differentiation,  which  is  only  one  example  of 
the  great  principle  of  division  of  labor.  The  aim 
is  economy  and  adaptation.  In  primitive  times 
women  are  domestic  and  industrial,  men  protective 
and  military.  That  is,  upon  women  falls  the  bur- 
den of  the  reproductive  functions,  and  in  addition, 
the  simi)le  industries  of  primitive  life — the  agri- 
cultural work,  the  preparing  of  food  and  clothing, 
in  fact  nearly  all  of  the  productive  labor  of  early 
civilization.  Men,  on  the  other  hand,  are  occupied 
with  war,  both  aggressive  and  defensive,  protecting 
their  families  from  the  attacks  of  other  men  or 
beasts,  and  taking,  where  possible,  from  others  the 
fruits  of  their  labor ;  the  chase — a  calling  warlike 
in  character — being  the  only  one  at  all  industrial 
which  is  performed  by  men. 

The  functions  of  the  two  sexes  are  comparatively 
equal  in  importance  in  very  early  conditions  of  life. 


148  THE  MODERN  CHANGE  IN 

This  is  in  harmony  with  the  general  law  of  evolu- 
tion :  the  greatest  specialization  of  function  occurs, 
not  in  primitive,  undifferentiated  conditions,  but 
far  later  on  in  the  development  of  life.  As  society 
becomes  more  highly  organized  the  military  func- 
tions assume  greater  and  greater  importance.  The 
one  question  is  whether  those  who  defend  the  tribe 
are  capable  of  protecting  it,  and,  if  necessary,  of 
taking  the  material  of  life  from  others.  The  loss 
of  a  single  family  is  comparatively  insignificant. 
If  women  are  not  in  suflicient  numbers  in  the  tribe, 
and  the  warriors  are  superior  to  their  neighbors, 
other  women  can  be  stolen  from  surrounding  tribes. 
That  is,  if  the  military  activities  are  strong  and 
successful,  it  is  possible  to  have  the  industrial  and 
reproductive  functions  carried  out ;  whereas  these 
latter,  without  the  protection  of  the  former,  are  in- 
capable of  sustaining  themselves.  Thus  it  happens 
that  in  the  intermediate  conditions  of  human  pro- 
gress, the  industrial  and  reproductive  functions  are 
under  the  control  of  the  military  ones ;  hence 
women  are  dominated  by  men.  It  may  be  said,  in 
a  word,  that  the  whole  history,  sad  and  pitiful  as 
it  is,  of  women,  is  the  long  record  of  their  slow 
emancipation  from  the  control  of  men,  as  the  in- 
dustrial functions  have  been  slowly  freed  from  the 
dominance  of  the  military  ones.  In  the  present 
time  those  nations  in  which  the  military  life  is 


IDEALS  OF  WOMANHOOD  149 

most  important  are  those  in  which  the  advance- 
ment of  women  has  been  longest  retarded,  and 
where  the  military  functions  have  become  least 
significant,  women  have  the  greatest  freedom  and 
the  largest  sphere  of  action. 

The  family,  beginning  thus  as  a  reproductive 
and  industrial  institution,  is  a  simple  social  unit. 
The  basis  of  choice  in  primitive  marriage  is  physio- 
logical attraction  combined  with  economic  utility. 
Almost  any  healthy  organism  of  one  sex  is  attrac- 
tive to  almost  any  healthy  organism  of  the  other. 
In  such  a  condition  there  is  no  problem  of  personal 
relation  of  any  importance  :  it  is  purely  a  matter 
of  sex  and  economic  adjustment.  Yet  the  intimate 
association  of  two  individuals,  even  in  primitive 
conditions  of  life,  cannot  fail  to  change  somewhat 
the  character  of  each;  and  when  this  change  is 
accumulated  through  untold  centuries  of  human 
history  it  modifies  the  entire  character  of  the  union 
out  of  which  it  sprang.  The  physiological  and 
economic  association  becomes  a  personal  one,  where 
individual  choice  is  of  great  importance.  Thus 
marriage,  which  began  as  a  reproductive  and  eco- 
nomic institution,  becomes  a  spiritual  and  human 
one.  The  connection  which  was  at  first  only  on  a 
physical  basis  becomes  a  union  in  the  more  perma- 
nent qualities  of  character.  Although  this  change 
is  slowly  accomplished  through  ages  of  biological 


150  THE   MODERN   CHANGE   IN 

evolution,  its  main  outlines  are  evident  in  the 
historical  period  of  humanity,  and  its  greater 
accomplishment  comes  very  late. 

The  opposing  principles  are  seen  struggling  to- 
gether in  the  Periclean  age  of  ancient  Greece.  In 
that  epoch  freemen  lived  a  public  life  ;  the  politi- 
cal and  military  vocations  alone  were  respected, 
and  the  free  citizen  expected  to  enter  upon  these. 
Women,  on  the  other  hand,  were  confined  to  a 
strictly  domestic  existence.  They  were  uneducated, 
and  were  rarely  the  intellectual  companions  of 
their  husbands.  They  were  secluded  almost  as 
strictly  after  marriage  as  before  :  it  was  even  con- 
sidered indecent  for  a  wife  to  sit  at  table  with  her 
husband  and  one  of  his  friends.  Greek  men  were, 
however,  developed  to  a  point  where  they  craved 
intellectual  companionship,  and  were  capable  of 
relations  founded  in  the  more  permanent  qualities 
of  character.  The  result  was  that  friendships 
between  men  occupied  a  most  remarkable  place  in 
the  Greek  world.  And  there  is  further  that  strange 
anomaly  of  Greek  life,  the  position  of  the  higher 
classes  of  the  hetserse.  A  few  of  these  women  were 
the  intellectual  companions  of  cultivated  men. 
When  one  remembers  that  the  greatest  statesman 
of  Greece  made  one  of  them  his  wife,  and  when  one 
considers  the  attitude  of  the  noblest  moral  teacher 
of  the  ancient  world  toward  the  educated  courtezan, 


IDEALS   OF   WOMANHOOD  151 

one  will  realize  the  respect  in  which  cultivated 
women  of  this  class  were  sometimes  held. 

But  the  freedom  of  the  few  Greek  women  who 
attained  it  was  gained  at  the  expense  of  much  of 
what  is  best  in  human  life ;  and  such  a  sacrifice 
ought  to  be  avoided  in  any  spiritual  civilization. 
The  limitations  in  the  development  of  Greek  women 
involved  an  inevitable  dwarfing  of  the  lives  of  men, 
for  the  highest  development  of  one  sex  can  never 
be  attained  without  that  of  the  other. 

Christianity  brought  a  respect  for  womanhood 
which  the  ancient  world  had  never  known.  The 
worship  of  the  Virgin  placed  woman  in  altogether 
a  new  light.  Yet  the  gain  was  not  unmixed  with 
evil.  Woman  in  her  human  capacities  was 
despised  with  almost  a  Mohammedan  arrogance. 
Throughout  the  writings  of  mediaeval  churchmen 
this  contemptuous  attitude  is  expressed  ;  and 
women  are  regarded  as  the  source  of  all  evil.  In 
extreme  opposition  to  the  naive  acceptance  of  all 
healthy  functions  of  life  by  the  ancient  world  is 
the  mediaeval  horror  of  them.  The  ideal  wor- 
shipped was  not  the  human  wife  and  mother,  but 
the  negative  and  ascetic  ideal  of  isolation  from  the 
world.  The  purity  reverenced  was  not  the  purity 
of  virtue,  but  of  Innocence  ;  and  marriage  was 
regarded  as  a  concession  to  the  weakness  of 
mankind. 


162  THE  MODERN  CHANGE  IN 

Thus  the  mediaeval  world  elevated  a  certain  type 
of  womanhood,  but  attached  a  new  sense  of  degra- 
dation to  the  normal  relations  of  human  life.  Be- 
side sainthood  and  romantic  chivalry  we  find  wide- 
spread corruption  in  many  aspects  of  life.  Though 
marriage  was  made  a  sacrament,  it  was  regarded 
as  evil.  How  few  of  the  Madonna  faces  satisfy  us 
with  their  negative  innocence,  even  in  the  art  of 
the  renaissance  which  so  greatly  modified  the 
mediaeval  ideal.  The  noblest  of  them  all,  the 
Sistine  Madonna  of  Raphael,  attains  its  marvelous 
beauty  by  the  transfiguration  of  human  maiden- 
hood and  motherhood. 

The  mediaeval  ideal  of  womanhood  was  obviously 
opposed  to  natural  selection,  and  had  inevitably  to 
disappear.  The  woman  capable  of  perpetuating 
herself  in  offspring  was  not  the  saint,  but  was  still 
the  one  willing  to  lose  herself  entirely  in  the  circle 
of  family  relations  and  domestic  service.  The  fact 
that  the  negative  ideal  could  prevail  so  long,  and 
is  still  so  strong,  is  a  striking  illustration  of  the 
power  of  convention  and  education  to  continue  a 
type  of  life  even  against  the  clear  tendencies  of 
natural  selection. 

The  dawn  of  modern  ideals  of  womanhood  occurs 
In  the  renaissance,  accompanying  the  general  ex- 
pansion of  life.  Men  turned  to  the  more  healthy 
conceptions  of  the  ancient  world,  and  loved  the 


IDEALS   OF   WOMANHOOD  153 

beauty  of  life  and  its  realization  in  the  present. 
No  other  epoch  shows  so  marvelous  and  rich  a 
development  of  individual  life.  The  good  and  bad 
tendencies  of  character  were  alike  given  unre- 
strained play,  and  great  depravity  existed  side  by 
side  with  the  sublimest  heights  of  culture,  art, 
science  and  action.  Naturally,  in  such  an  epoch 
we  find  the  greatest  variety  of  conditions  in  the 
sphere  of  personal  life.  Vices  of  all  kinds  were 
prevalent,  but  here  and  there  personal  relations 
reached  a  plane  far  higher  than  had  been  attained 
anywhere  in  history.  The  noblest  Avomen  of  the 
renaissance  were  worthy  to  be  the  companions  of 
cultivated  men  in  marriage  or  friendship.  Such 
higher  relations  meant  a  greater  development  of 
life,  and  made  it  possible  for  the  family  to  1111  a 
larger  place  in  the  lives  of  men,  and  furnish  a  wider 
field  for  self-realization.  There  was  still  however 
no  general  emancipation  of  women,  and  the  cases 
where  ideal  personal  relations  were  attained  were 
few  in  number. 

Since  the  time  of  the  renaissance  there  has  been 
great  progress  in  extending  the  activities  of  women, 
and  in  our  own  time  the  movement  has  gone  on 
with  vastly  increased  rapidity.  In  this  increase  of 
freedom  there  are  of  course  incidental  evils.  Friv- 
olous women  imagine  they  may  take  the  freedom 
without  its  accompanying  responsibilities  ;  while 


154  THE  MODERN  CHANGE  IN 

every  added  opportunity  is  increased  obligation. 
Women  who  take  advantage  of  their  freedom  to 
live  idle  and  frivolous  lives,  while  their  husbands 
and  fathers  are  ceaselessly  toiling  in  the  treadmill 
of  business  to  support  them  and  gratify  their 
vanity,  are  punished  by  their  own  degradation,  and 
by  the  loss  of  the  significance  of  their  personal 
relations. 

Yet  most  women  have  accepted  gladly  the  obli- 
gations which  larger  freedom  inevitably  involves. 
It  is  obvious  that  in  modern  civilization  the 
home  is  still  far  from  ideal.  But  the  larger 
interests  and  activities  of  women,  and  the  de- 
velopment  of  the  higher  qualities  of  character, 
have  changed  the  meaning  of  marriage.  It  is  no 
longer  merely  industrial  and  reproductive,  but  is 
spiritual  and  human.  The  evolution  of  higher  and 
more  permanent  qualities  of  the  spirit  makes  the 
union  of  great  importance  in  the  development  of 
both  individuals.  Mere  instinct  gives  place  to 
spiritual  love  founded  on  the  deeper  elements  of 
character.  The  fact  that  we  believe  such  love  ought 
always  to  be  present,  dignifying  marriage  and 
making  it  sacred,  is  an  illustration  of  the  spiritual 
and  human  meaning  which  has  been  developed  in 
this  relation.  The  family  life  has  vastly  greater 
possibilities  of  self-realization  for  each  member  of 
it,  than  when  it  represented  a  side  interest  in  men's 


IDEALS    OF   WOMANHOOD  155 

lives.  The  moral  meaning  of  any  institution  lies 
in  the  help  it  is  able  to  give  to  the  development  of 
all  individuals  influenced  by  it.  The  evolution  of 
finer  and  more  permanent  qualities  of  character 
means  a  change  in  the  plane  of  life,  and  gives  all 
the  personal  relations  newer  and  larger  import. 

This  means  that  the  plane  or  basis  of  selection 
changes  somewhat  with  every  step  of  evolution. 
Formerly  the  selective  value  was  placed  entirely 
upon  the  woman  who  was  willing  to  lose  her  own 
personality,  and  sink  her  life  wholly  in  that  of  the 
family.  Now,  more  and  more,  intelligent  men  find 
the  best  realization  of  their  lives  through  women 
of  independent  strength  of  character,  who  are 
unwilling  to  lose  entirely  all  wider  interests 
of  life  in  the  domestic  establishment.  This  means 
a  great  and  increasing  change  in  the  selective  prin- 
ciple, and  is  of  profound  importance.  Intelligent 
women  have  more  and  more  opportunity  to  per- 
petuate themselves.  This  in  turn  doubles  the  selec- 
tive value  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  for  intelli- 
gent and  voluntary  motherhood  means  better  born 
and  better  trained  children. 

This  change  in  the  basis  of  selection  is  no  strange 
anomaly,  but  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  what  takes 
place  everywhere  in  the  progress  of  life.  When 
a  higher  adaptation  appears  it  always  ])()ssesses 
a  greater  selective  value  than  a  lower  adaptation 


166  THE  MODERN  CHANGE  IN 

that,  preceded  it.  During  long  ages  of  biological 
history  the  type  of  organism  best  fitted  to  survive 
was  that  which  had  developed  a  rudely  specialized 
digestive  system.  This  gave  it  superiority  to  the 
undifferentiated  type  which  came  before  it.  But 
later  came  the  development  of  more  highly  special- 
ized muscular  structure :  this  gave  new  functions 
with  a  selective  value  above  that  possessed  by  the 
antecedent  type.  This  movement  was  followed  by 
the  evolution  of  a  complicated  nervous  system, 
changing  again  the  plane  of  selection,  making 
the  possession  of  unwieldy  muscular  structure  as 
little  an  advantage  in  the  battle  of  life  as  the  use 
of  mediaeval  armor  would  be  in  warfare  today. 
The  higher  adaptation  consists  not  only  in  refining 
old  structures  and  functions,  but  in  acquiring  new 
ones  on  a  different  plane  of  selection. 

This  law  can  be  seen  everywhere  in  the  evolution 
of  the  higher  human  life.  The  time  when  the 
premium  in  the  struggle  for  existence  was  placed 
upon  brute  strength  has  long  since  passed.  Intel- 
lectual and  moral  qualities  have  a  higher  selective 
value  than  physical  ones  in  the  battle  of  life.  That 
is,  spiritual  and  human  qualities  have  an  increasing 
importance  as  against  brute  ones.  Darwin  fought 
ill-health  all  his  life,  and  Spencer  has  long  been 
compelled  to  do  so,  yet  who  would  contend  that  the 
selective  value  was  not  placed  more  upon  them  than 


IDEALS   OF   WOMANHOOD  157 

upon  the  man  of  merely  brute  strength.  Thus  the 
fact  that  the  premium  in  the  struggle  for  existence 
was  once  placed  on  a  certain  type  of  womanhood, 
argues  little  in  favor  of  the  worth  of  that  type 
to-day.  And  the  presumption  is  always  against  the 
present  fitness  of  a  type  which  was  perfectly 
adapted  to  conditions  which  are  obsolete  or  passing. 

When  marriage  becomes  a  spiritual  and  human 
institution,  making  possible  a  union  in  the  more 
permanent  qualities  of  character,  a  union  capable 
of  profoundly  influencing  the  development  of  each 
individual,  then  the  higher  significance  is  more  im- 
portant, and  none  the  less  natural,  than  the  lower 
one  out  of  which  it  developed  with  the  change  in 
the  plane  of  life.  What  is  desirable  is  not  that 
the  greatest  possible  number  of  children  should  be 
born  into  the  world,  and  that  women  should  be  a 
little  higher  order  of  domestic  animals.  The  need 
is  for  more  intelligent  motherhood  and  fatherhood, 
and  for  better  born  and  better  educated  children. 
When  the  human  will  and  reason  develop,  they 
should  more  and  more  take  the  place  of  blind  and 
irrational  forces  in  the  working  out  of  life. 

It  is  a  law  of  universal  application  in  the  organic 
world  that  the  higher  the  species,  the  smaller  is 
the  number  of  offspring,  and  the  larger  the  per- 
centage of  these  surviving  and  reaching  adult  life. 
Thus,  even  in  the  lower  world,  evolution  proceeds 


168  THE  MODERN  CHANGE  IN 

not  only  by  the  destruction  of  the  unfit,  but  by  the 
production  and  development  of  those  better  pre- 
pared to  live.  The  higher  animals  have  not  suf- 
fered beside  the  lower  ones  in  the  struggle  of  life, 
though  the  capacity  for  numerical  reproduction  is 
indefinitely  greater  in  the  latter.  Applied  to  the 
higher  human  world,  this  means  that  progress  shall 
be  less  and  less  attained  by  the  blind  destruction 
of  the  unfit,  and  more  and  more  by  the  develop- 
ment of  greater  adaptation  through  conscious 
education,  and  by  making  it,  as  far  as  may  be, 
impossible  for  the  hopelessly  unfit  to  be  born  to 
the  misery  of  a  life  of  inevitable  failure. 

It  is  this  progressive  change  in  the  plane  of  selec- 
tion that  is  so  often  ignored  in  the  current  discus- 
sion. Love  and  personal  modesty  are  in  no  way 
less  noble  or  less  true  when  we  view  them  as  results 
of  a  long  struggle  up  from  a  low  physical  plane. 
The  fact  that  the  whole  meaning  of  marriage  once 
lay  in  reproductive  and  industrial  economy  in  no 
way  detracts  from  its  spiritual  and  human  meaning 
on  the  plane  of  life  humanity  has  reached. 

While  these  great  changes  are  in  process  of 
accomplishment  there  must  inevitably  be  much  suf- 
fering and  countless  misadjustments.  A  transition 
period  is  always  painful,  because  it  is  so  hard  to 
understand  the  conditions  of  life,  and  so  difficult 
to  pass  out  of  ideas  which   once  dominated  us. 


IDEALS   OF   WOMANHOOD  159 

When  a  man  who  is  anxious  for  the  strong,  helpful 
meeting  with  another  self-centered  personality 
finds  himself  united  to  a  woman  who  desires  merely 
to  submit  herself  to  the  control  of  another,  and 
who  has  no  wish  for  independent  life,  the  result  is 
tragedy.  When  a  woman  who  craves  a  strong, 
self-affirming  and  growing  life  finds  herself  united 
to  a  man  who  demands  that  the  home  should  be  an 
adjunct  in  his  existence,  but  should  entirely  satisfy 
the  needs  of  his  wife,  the  result  is  tragedy.  But  it 
is  in  the  second  case  that  the  suffering  is  deepest, 
for  men  have  compensating  channels  through  which 
it  is  possible  for  them  to  attain  some  measure  of 
self -development.  But  for  a  woman  in  such  a  case 
there  is  almost  no  escape.  Every  effort  she  makes 
to  fulfil  her  life  is  misunderstood,  and  seems  only 
to  tighten  the  chains  that  bind  her.  Margaret, 
with  the  intuitive  appreciation  her  awakening  in- 
stincts gave  her,  understood  the  difference  between 
her  life  and  Faust's,  when  she  said  : 

"  Denkt  ihr  an  mich  ein  Augenblickchen  nur, 
Ich  werde  Zeit  genug  an  euch  zu  denken  haben." 

The  greatest  obstacles,  however,  which  women 
have  to  meet,  do  not  lie  in  the  opposition  of  indi- 
viduals. A  woman  who  struggles  out  into  more 
complete  life  is  met  by  two  difficulties.  The  greater 
of  these  is  within  herself  in  the  shape  of  those 
instincts  toward  self -annulment,   which  we  have 


160         THE  MODERN  CHANGE  IN 

seen  are  the  result  of  countless  centuries  of  bio- 
logical and  historical  selection.  Other  instincts 
are  present  in  her  which  are  due  to  comparatively- 
late  progress  in  civilization,  and  which  are  increased 
rapidly  by  education,  but  these  have  not  the  same 
absolutely  dominating  force  as  those  which  depend 
upon  so  long  a  period  of  biological  history.  The 
second  obstacle  is  the  perpetuation  in  all  the  outer 
structure  of  civilization  of  the  same  tendencies 
which  are  within  women  as  instinct.  The  preju- 
dice and  misunderstanding  which  a  woman  who 
seeks  to  live  a  strong  and  independent  life  must 
meet,  are  hard  to  bear,  especially  as  they  drive  her 
back  upon  herself,  and  give  added  strength  to  the 
instincts  of  which  they  are  the  outward  social 
expression.  The  outer  and  inner  demands  unite, 
and  make  it  extremely  painful  and  difficult  for  a 
woman  to  go  on  in  positive  life. 

However,  it  is  impossible  to  go  back  to  the  primi- 
tive plane.  The  need  for  a  realization  of  life  in 
action  is  becoming  more  and  more  widespread 
among  women.  If  it  is  less  dominating  than  the 
instincts  which  have  a  longer  history,  it  is  increased 
by  the  tendencies  of  modern  civilization,  and  is 
strong  enough  to  cause  a  growing  restlessness  in 
the  lives  of  women.  The  opposing  tendencies  are 
in  conflict  in  the  most  painful  of  all  battles— that 
within  the  spirit    itself.    As  the  change  in  the 


IDEALS   OF   WOMANHOOD  161 

plane  of  selection  places  the  premium  increasingly 
upon  the  woman  in  whom  the  later  instincts  are 
strong,  the  result  is  to  increase  the  acuteness  of  the 
transition  struggle. 

The  cure  for  half-knowledge  is  larger  truth,  and 
the  pain  that  comes  in  the  transition  is  removed 
only  by  a  fulfilment  of  the  process.  When  women 
have  awakened  to  dissatisfaction  with  the  old  con- 
ditions of  life,  they  can  never  return  permanently 
to  them.  It  is  possible  to  work  on,  through  the 
period  of  transition  in  which  we  find  ourselves, 
toward  a  stronger  and  a  saner  life :  to  go  back  to 
the  undeveloped  conditions  of  earlier  existence  is 
an  absolute  impossibility. 

To  understand  the  significance  of  this  struggle  is 
to  meet  its  difficulties  more  intelligently — to  bring 
greater  rationality  into  life.  To  shut  our  eyes  to 
the  results  of  many  ages  of  biological  selection  is 
not  to  overcome  them ;  and  a  solution  which  ignores 
their  presence  and  meaning  is  as  futile  as  the  con- 
servatism which  would  hold  life  to  its  primitive 
adjustments,  and  refuses  to  recognize  the  fact  of 
advance. 

The  biological  selection  which  has  so  highly 
differentiated  the  type  of  manhood  from  that  of 
womanhood,  gives  each  its  peculiar  strength  and 
its  special  weakness.  The  view  so  widely  expressed 
that  women  are  better  than  men,  is  uttered  largely 


162  THE  MODERN  CHANGE  IN 

for  purposes  of  flattery  and  has  little  justification. 
Equally"  unwarranted  is  the  opinion,  held  privately 
by  so  many — often  by  those  who  express  the 
opposite — that  women  are  inferior  and  to  be  de- 
spised. Each  type  has  its  own  strength  and  its 
correlative  weakness.  To  judge  one  by  the  stand- 
ard of  the  other  is  to  see  its  faults  out  of  relation, 
and  fail  to  appreciate  its  positive  significance. 
This  problem  finds  a  parallel  in  that  differentiation 
of  historic  ideals  found  in  Greek  and  Christian 
civilization.  As  it  was  necessary  to  see  each  from 
within  to  appreciate  what  of  the  whole  possibility 
of  the  human  spirit  it  really  did  embody,  so  is  it 
in  the  case  of  the  man  and  the  woman. 

The  peculiar  greatness  of  women  lies  in  the  power 
to  know  the  truth  instinctively  in  the  world  of  the 
personal  relations,  and  to  live  it  with  unfaltering 
fidelity.  This  quality  of  the  "eternal  womanly" 
makes  the  splendid  heroines  of  literature  and  life 
everywhere.  Heloise  and  Desdemona,  Pompilia, 
and  Helena  in  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,  Margaret 
in  the  Cloister  and  the  Hearth,  never  fail  to  know 
the  best  and  affirm  it  unquestioningly.  What  men 
can  be  placed  beside  them?  Browning's  Capon- 
sacchi  is  a  noteworthy  exception ;  but  Abelard  and 
Othello,  Gerard,  and  Philip  in  the  Manxman  as 
compared  with  Kate,  all  fall  sadJy  short  of  the 
ideal. 


IDEALS    OF    WOMANHOOD  163 

This  power  in  women  does  not  come  from  wordly 
knowledge ;  it  is  perhaps  oftenest  present  when 
there  is  little  of  the  latter.  It  is  an  immediate 
quality  of  the  soul.  Women  have  more  of  the 
heroic  imprudence  which  forms  the  highest  point 
of  virtue,  beginning  where  prudent  calculation 
commences  to  be  low  and  criminal.  More  sensi- 
tive than  men  to  the  exigencies  of  society  and  the 
opinions  of  others,  women  are  vastly  more  capable 
of  a  noble  abandonment  of  convention  for  the  sake 
of  life,  and  can  live  unswervingly  in  obedience  to 
their  choice.  Men  try  to  intellectualize  all  their 
experiences,  while  the  best  things  of  personal  life 
cannot  be  translated  into  terms  of  the  understand- 
ing. It  is  rarely  that  they  can  give  up  the  smaller 
calculations  of  prudence,  so  essential  in  all  ordi- 
nary circumstances,  and  so  distorting  to  the  higher 
calls  of  the  spirit.  Men  give  way  to  lower  influ- 
ences, allow  insignificant  elements  to  poison  or 
replace  the  most  sacred  things  of  life,  loosely 
accept  a  promiscuous  adjustment. 

It  is  true,  the  superiority  of  women  in  literature 
is  partly  due  to  chivalry  and  the  particular  tradi- 
tions of  art.  And,  indeed,  even  in  the  world  of 
personal  relations  women  have  their  special  weak- 
ness ;  for  the  same  quality  that  ennobles  the  heroic 
type  of  womanhood,  shows  at  times  in  less  exalted 
women  in  the  unreasoning  adoration  of  unworthy 


164         THE  MODERN  CHANGE  IN 

men,  in  weakly  giving  way  to  passing  emotions,  or 
in  foolishly  idealizing  a  partial  or  imagined  experi- 
ence, and  so  living  to  it  at  the  expense  of  the 
positive  opportunities  of  life.  Yet  it  remains  a 
fact  that  in  the  world  of  the  personal  relations  men 
must  look  up  to  women,  and  reverence  them  with  a 
consecrated  worship,  for  indeed  it  is  "the  eternal 
womanly"  that  leads  us  ever  "upward  and  on." 

On  the  other  hand  the  weakness  of  men  is  but 
the  necessary  accompaniment  of  the  peculiar 
strength  developed  in  them  by  natural  selection. 
In  the  long  ages  of  the  coarser  struggle  of  life  the 
lack  of  spiritual  fineness  among  men,  and  their 
capacity  for  easy  and  promiscuous  adjustment, 
have  been  distinct  advantages.  It  has  been  well 
that  the  coarser  passions  were  strong  and  master- 
ful in  them.  It  is  because  of  these  qualities  that 
they  have  been  capable  of  a  vigorous  and  consist- 
ent battle  with  the  world.  To  them  vocational 
activity  is  easy.  They  respond  to  great  ambitions, 
and  require  an  active  realization  of  character.  As 
literature  ceases  to  be  occupied  so  exclusively  with 
love,  and  comes  to  deal  more  adequately  with  the 
problem  of  action,  greater  justice  will  be  done  to 
the  heroic  type  of  manhood.  The  growing  import- 
ance of  the  problem  of  the  vocation,  and  the 
broadening  and  the  humanizing  of  art,  must  inevit- 
ably cause  this ;  and  then  the  relations  of  men  and 


IDEALS  OF  WOMANHOOD  166 

women  in  all  phases  of  life  will  be  seen  in  clearer 
perspective.  There  are  already  hints  of  this  in 
literature.  Wilhelm  Meister  focuses  in  interest, 
not  upon  the  wide  array  of  rather  dissipating  per- 
sonal relations,  but  upon  the  realization  of  life 
through  the  vocation ;  and  in  the  modern  novel 
the  problem  of  action  is  becoming  increasingly 
important. 

The  sphere  in  which  the  special  strength  of  man- 
hood lies  is  the  place  where  the  peculiar  weakness 
of  women  is  evident;  a  weakness  dependent  again 
upon  the  particular  type  of  character  selected,  and 
existing  as  the  necessary  corollary  to  its  strength. 
Consistent  and  independent  action  is  difficult  to 
women.  They  work  readily  under  immediate 
direction,  and  inspired  by  personal  appreciation; 
but  alone,  they  often  show  alternate  periods  of 
brilliant  accomplishment,  and  utter  inability  to 
act.  It  is  but  rarely  they  they  can  be  depended 
upon  for  the  steady  and  independent  performance 
of  undirected  activities. 

The  series  of  vocations  upon  which  they  have 
successfully  entered  makes  this  evident.  The 
sphere  of  their  easiest  success  has  been  that  of 
personal  service,  from  household  labor  to  the  call- 
ing of  the  nurse  and  the  physician,  where  they 
work  for  individuals  and  to  personal  appreciation. 
Outside  of  this  field  they  pass  readily  to  teadiing, 


166  THE  MODERN  CHANGE  IN 

a  profession  again  connected  with  the  service  of  in- 
dividuals, and  involving  maternal  functions.  The 
next  series  of  vocations  in  which  their  success  has 
been  remarkable  is  the  field  of  the  fine  arts,  where 
there  is  opportunity  for  immediate  emotional  and 
personal  expression ;  and  their  adaptation  has 
proved  greatest  to  those  arts  where  personal  direc- 
tion and  appreciation  is  most  immediate,  as  in 
painting,  singing  and  acting.  It  is  even  true  that 
women  are  more  capable  than  men  of  needlessly 
abandoning  their  vocational  activities,  as  indeed 
they  are  more  tempted  to  do,  and  of  sinking  with 
less  resistance  into  a  life  of  frivolous  vanity.  On 
the  other  hand,  they  have  a  power  to  exalt  the 
vocations  upon  which  they  enter,  which  is  again 
expressive  of  their  peculiar  type.  They  are  in- 
clined to  seek  ideal  rather  than  utilitarian  ends, 
and  to  follow  the  personal  and  human  rather  than 
the  commercial  results  of  action. 

Though  not  absolute  or  universal,  in  a  large  way 
this  differentiation  of  capacity  and  activity  holds ; 
and  a  frank  recognition  of  it,  and  of  its  signifi- 
cance, is  an  indispensable  step  to  a  solution  of  the 
difficulties  that  must  be  met.  The  need  is  not  to  con- 
demn or  praise  either  men  or  women,  but  to  appre- 
ciate the  peculiar  strength  and  weakness  of  each. 
For  either  sex  arrogantly  to  flatter  itself  with  an 
unwarranted  feeling  of  superiority,  or  to  degrade 


IDEALS   OF   WOMANHOOD  167 

itself  with  an  unworthy  attitude  of  inferiority, 
leads  to  a  misjudgment  of  the  conditions  of  life 
and  of  the  individuals  with  whom  we  must  live. 

The  differences  that  exist  between  men  and  women 
are  not  to  be  overcome;  indeed  it  would  be  the 
greatest  evil  were  they  to  be  removed.  Nothing  is 
uglier  than  masculine  women  and  effeminate  men. 
Superficial  likeness  between  the  sexes  is  the  last 
thing  to  be  desired.  Copying  details,  perhaps 
merely  accidental,  in  masculine  dress  and  behavior, 
is  not  the  path  to  wider  life  for  women.  Maternity 
will  always  cost  more  than  fatherhood,  physically 
and  mentally  ;  the  typical  differences  in  mind  and 
heart  between  men  and  women  will  continue  to  be 
present.  Though  the  old  instincts  respectively  of 
dominance  and  submission  are  changed  in  form,  in 
transfigured  shape  they  still  survive,  and  make 
part  of  the  charm  and  wonder  of  love. 

Yet  there  is  a  higher  ideal  than  manhood  or 
womanhood.  Life  always  precedes  its  functions 
in  importance;  and  fatherhood  and  motherhood, 
manhood  and  womanhood,  are  but  expressions  and 
relations  of  the  human  being.  As  the  unity  and 
potentiality  of  the  human  spirit  are  present  in 
each  individual,  so  the  highest  ideal  we  can  con- 
ceive is  not  masculine  or  feminine,  but  Jiuman. 
The  two  Ideals  tend  to  approach  each  other,  or 
rather,    with  their  expansion,  the  sphere  of  each 


168  THE  MODERN  CHANGE  IN 

overlaps  and  includes  more  of  the  other.  We  ask 
that  men  shall  be,  not  alone  strong  and  brave  and 
true,  but  refined  and  gentle;  and  we  ask  that 
women  shall  be,  not  only  sensitive  and  tender  and 
loving,  but  strong  and  capable  of  some  measure  of 
independent  life.  Women  are  most  womanly  not 
when  they  are  weakest  in  action,  but  when  their 
personal  insight  is  strengthened  by  active  self- 
expression  ;  and  men  are  strongest  in  vocational 
life  when  they  are  sensitive  to  love  and  inspired 
through  the  personal  relations.  Action  depends 
for  its  inspiration  and  its  elevation  upon  love,  and 
love  for  its  worth  and  permanence  upon  consecrated 
action.  The  personal  relation  which  destroys  or 
lessens  the  power  to  work  earnestly  and  well,  is  an 
immoral  self-indulgence  unworthy  the  name  of 
love,  and  sure  in  the  end  to  dissipate  the  measure 
of  love  that  may  have  been  present.  The  voca- 
tional activity  which  absorbs  the  individual  at  the 
expense  of  his  power  to  love  is  blind  and  selfish, 
devitalizing  the  action  and  destroying  the  worth 
of  the  life. 

When  each  attains  the  freest  and  fullest  develop- 
ment marriage  has  highest  possibilities.  There 
can  be  no  satisfying  personal  relations  for  intelli- 
gent human  beings  except  upon  a  plane  of  entire 
equality.  Herein  lies  the  greatest  significance  of 
all  widening  of  the  spheres  of  interest  and  activity 


IDEALS   OF   WOMANHOOD  169 

for  women.  The  wider  these  are,  the  more  satisfy- 
ing will  be  the  possibilities  of  the  personal  rela- 
tions. Whatever  tends  to  free  women  from  any- 
external  compulsion  to  marry,  places  marriage  itself 
upon  a  nobler  plane.  It  is  for  the  benefit  neither 
of  the  present  nor  of  future  generations  that 
women  should  be  forced  into  marriage  by  economic 
causes.  It  is  a  voluntary  and  intelligent  mother- 
hood, based  upon  an  uncompelled  and  loving  union, 
that  is  capable  of  giving  good  citizens  to  the  state 
and  good  men  and  women  to  the  world.  And  in 
such  a  union  alone  can  there  be  any  true  and 
permanent  satisfaction  for  the  constantly  deepen- 
ing personal  life. 

The  joy  of  love  lies  in  the  perfect  union  where 
each  gives  and  takes  absolutely.  The  complete  ab- 
sorption of  each  in  the  other  is  its  highest  bliss ; 
but  it  must  be  such  a  mutual  union,  and  not  the 
dragging  of  the  one  out  of  the  orbit  of  his  own  life 
into  that  of  the  other.  For  it  is  a  hard  law  of  life 
that  to  be  worthy  of  any  deep  relation  one  must  be 
able  to  do  without  it.  There  is  an  inevitable 
insipidity  in  any  intimate  association  where  one 
individual  is  a  mere  echo  of  the  other.  The  flattery 
of  an  imitator  may  please  one's  vanity,  but  cannot 
answer  the  needs  of  the  soul.  It  is  the  power  of 
love  to  complete  human  nature,  by  making  it 
possible  for  us   to  live  vicariously   through  the 


170  THE  MODERN  CHANGE  IN 

experience  of  another.  If  there  be  sufficient  com- 
munity of  life  to  bring  a  complete  union,  every 
difference  between  the  two  individuals  is  included 
in  it,  and  serves  only  to  deepen  the  life  of  each. 
That  is  why  the  love  of  a  man  and  a  woman  has 
higher  possibilities  than  any  other.  Every  differ- 
ence, physical,  mental,  spiritual,  adds  to  the 
blessedness  of  the  union,  if  the  likeness  and  com- 
munity of  life  be  sufficient  to  hold  the  differences 
resolved  in  one.  Then  each  can  enter  into  the 
peculiar  life  of  the  other,  and  become  completely 
human.  The  man  can  appreciate  the  delicacy,  the 
tenderness,  the  spirituality  and  absolute  insight  of 
the  woman.  The  woman  may  attain  the  stronger 
passion,  the  self-centered  power,  the  independent 
strength  and  activity  of  the  man. 

Thus  love  is  the  supreme  test  of  life.  Every  ele- 
ment of  character  enters  into  the  union  ;  and  the 
power  to  love  is  simply  the  measure  of  actual  and 
potential  life  in  the  individual.  It  is  not  strange 
that  so  few  people  can  love  supremely  and  sub- 
limely ;  they  are  not  worth  such  love,  to  give  or  to 
receive  it.  Their  lives  are  not  sufficiently  conse- 
crated, they  are  not  true  enough,  earnestly  and 
consistently  active  enough,  to  give  or  awaken  such 
love.  One  cannot  deliberately  choose  to  love ;  but 
one  may  choose  to  live  so  as  to  be  worthy  of  love  if 
one  be  blessed  with  it.  And  if  it  come,  it  will  prove 


IDEALS   OF   WOMANHOOD  171 

to  be  the  fire  that  will  test  every  element  of  the 
spirit,  the  heat  that  will  make  fluid  every  hard  and 
crystallized  part  of  life,  resolving  the  potential 
into  the  actual,  and  progressively  completing  in  one 
the  measure  of  humanity  of  which  one  is  capable. 

One  who  reads  the  long  story  of  the  progress  of 
humanity,  and  who  sees  the  bitter  suffering  that 
marks  every  step  of  the  way,  is  apt  ac  times  to 
despair,  and  to  wonder  whether  the  achievements 
of  the  race  have  been  worth  their  price.  But  what 
should  amaze  us  is  not  the  low  origin  of  higher 
human  things,  nor  the  pain  and  suffering  that 
marked  the  way,  but  the  noble  heights  to  which 
humanity  has  attained,  and  the  yet  higher  dreams 
which  lead  us  on. 

Out  of  it  all  we  can  see  the  new  ideal  of  woman- 
hood emerging.  It  is  not  the  purity  of  innocence 
we  shall  reverence,  but  the  purity  of  virtue ;  not 
the  negative,  mediaeval  ideal,  but  the  positive  one 
of  rounded  and  harmonious  development.  Unlike 
the  artificial  ideal  of  the  middle  ages,  this  is  in  line 
with  natural  selection,  for  more  and  more  the 
selective  value  is  placed  upon  it  with  the  higher  de- 
velopment of  life.  It  is  "the  eternal  womanly,"  but 
unhampered  by  artificial  limitations  and  traditional 
slavery.  It  is  woman  loving,  tender  and  sensitive, 
but  strong,  true  and  independent,  capable  of  stand- 
ing alone,  and  so  worthy  of  the  highest  union  in  the 
most  intimate  relations  of  human  life. 


VIII. 

THE    ETHICS  OF  SOCIAL 
RECONSTRUCTION 


THE  period  in  which  we  live  is  more  difficult 
for  us  to  understand  than  any  other,  pre- 
cisely because  it  is  our  own.  That  which 
lies  distant  is  seen  in  clear  perspective,  while 
nearer  events  crowd  in  upon  us  with  no  principle 
of  selection.  If  we  wish  to  see  the  configuration 
of  a  landscape  we  climb  the  highest  mountain 
peak,  and  then  the  various  features  of  the  world 
about  us  fall  into  their  true  relation.  The  insignifi- 
cant hillocks,  that  seemed  so  high  when  we  were 
below  them  in  the  plain,  sink  into  their  true  posi- 
tion, and  the  larger  outline  of  the  distant  mountain 
chain,  which  was  lost  when  we  stood  near  its  foot, 
is  seen  in  all  its  harmony. 

So  history  is  sifted  by  time.  The  mere  inequali- 
ties and  accidents  in  the  surface  of  to-day's  life 
obscure  the  outline  of  the  mountain  chains  of 
tendency.  The  unimportant  fills  our  vision,  while 
the  essential  is  lost.  But  in  the  perspective  of  his- 
tory the  past  stands  out  in  clear  outline.  The 
slight  inequalities  sink  into  the  level  of  the  plain. 
The  peaks  of  great  achievement  stand  out  clearly, 
and  the  mountain  chains  of  great  tendencies  are 
seen  in  their  true  majesty.  When  Shakespeare's 
Mark  Antony  said  : 

"  The  evil  that  men  do  lives  after  them ; 
The  good  is  oft  interred  with  their  bones," 


176       THE   ETHICS   OF   SOCIAL   RECONSTRUCTION 

he  stated  a  striking  fallacy.  The  truth  is,  that 
while  a  startling  crime  may  be  remembered  for  a 
time,  it  is  only  the  good  that  really  lives  long — 
that  becomes  a  part  of  the  life  of  mankind.  It  is 
a  great  man  who  is  remembered  after  his  century. 
The  mass  of  unimportant  events  is  forgotten,  and 
dies  like  the  rotting  leaves  that  nourish  the  roots 
of  this  year's  flowers.  It  is  not  hard  for  the  slight- 
est student  to  understand  the  meaning  of  the  great, 
historic  movement  of  Christianity ;  yet  in  the 
midst  of  it  so  wise  and  humane  a  man  as  Marcus 
Aurelius  could  be  entirely  deceived  as  to  its  signif- 
icance. Every  school  boy  to-day  knows  the  mean- 
ing of  the  struggle  between  Greece  and  Persia ; 
but  that  meaning  was  so  far  from  evident  when  the 
struggle  was  on,  that  only  two  or  three  Greek 
cities  understood  it  sufficiently  to  take  an  heroic 
part  in  it. 

In  our  effort  to  understand  the  life  of  to-day  we 
are  hampered  by  this  lack  of  perspective.  It  is 
necessary  to  substitute  for  the  wanting  perspective 
of  time  and  space  a  perspective  of  the  soul.  We 
must  strive  to  get  away  in  spirit  from  our  own 
time,  and  see  it  from  the  vantage-ground  of  the 
great  movements  of  the  past.  This  is  one  of  the 
supreme  values  of  history.  It  gives  no  ready-made 
solutions  to  our  problems ;  but  it  can  lift  us  away 
from  the  submerging  stream  of  petty  details  which 


THE  ETHICS   OF   SOCIAL   RECONSTRUCTION       177 

overwhelms  us  in  the  present,  and  enable  us  to  look 
down  upon  the  landscape  of  modern  life  from  the 
mountain  heights  of  the  past.  This  is  peculiarly- 
necessary  in  a  time  like  our  own,  when  the  world 
is  stirred  by  new  ideals  and  menaced  by  unpre- 
cedented problems.  We  need  to  know  which  of 
the  hopes  put  forward  are  illusions,  and  which  are 
stars  in  the  path  of  tendency  to  lead  us  to  the 
world  of  to-morrow.  Only  by  viewing  our  problems 
in  the  light  of  the  larger  experience  of  humanity 
can  we  hope  to  accomplish  this. 

The  facts  of  human  history  are  woven  together 
in  seemingly  inextricable  fashion.  Each  event  is 
related  to  what  precedes  it  as  eifect,  and  to  what 
follows  it  as  cause.  It  has  been  said  that ' '  in  nature 
the  little  causes  produce  the  great  results;"  and 
this  is  supremely  true  of  the  moral  world.  Yet 
this  vast  array  of  causes  can  be  reduced  to  certain 
fundamental  classes.  Social  progress  is  accom- 
plished through  (1)  Changes  in  laws  and  institu- 
tions ;  through  (2)  Progress  in  invention  and  dis- 
covery; and  through  (8)  Changes  in  the  ideal  of 
life.  In  any  vital  period  of  history  forces  will  be 
found  in  all  three  spheres,  and  mutually  interacting. 

Behind  such  an  epoch  as  the  renaissance  are 
vastly  significant  changes  in  social  and  political 
institutions.  The  towns  along  the  coast  of  Europe 
grow  in  size  and  importance.     The  citizens  of  these 


178      THE   ETHICS   OF   SOCIAL  RECONSTRUCTION 

towns  gain  power  formerly  held  by  petty  nobles  in 
the  surrounding  country.  The  wide  cosmopolitan- 
ism of  the  middle  ages,  depending  upon  common 
religious  faith  and  organization,  gives  way  to 
modern  national  institutions.  Feudalism  and 
chivalry  decline,  and  social  and  individual  freedom 
begins  to  appear. 

If  one  is  to  understand  the  renaissance,  to  these 
institutional  changes  important  scientific  and  in- 
dustrial inventions  and  discoveries  must  be  added. 
The  importance  of  such  a  social  force,  for  instance, 
as  the  invention  of  printing  can  scarcely  be  exag- 
gerated. This  made  it  possible  for  education  to  be 
the  heritage  of  the  common  man.  No  other  inven- 
tion of  man  has  accomplished  as  much  as  printed 
books  in  annihilating  the  limitations  of  the  phy- 
sical world.  Books  enable  us  to  reach  back  over 
the  centuries  and  share  the  thought  of  one  who 
lived  in  another  world  than  our  own,  and  thus  to 
make  him  our  friend,  far  nearer  than  some  whom 
we  meet  in  the  street.  Thus  our  epoch  may  share 
in  the  life  of  others,  and  our  civilization  become 
increasingly  cosmopolitan. 

The  effect  upon  the  mind  of  Europe  of  the  dis- 
covery of  America  is  scarcely  intelligible  to  us  to- 
day. Here  was  a  new  continent  added  to  the  world, 
and  especially  to  its  imagination,  a  continent  that 
might  contain  the  fountain  of  youth  and  untold 


THE  ETHICS   OP   SOCIAL  EECONSTRUCTION       179 

Eldoradoes.  It  stimulated  adventure  and  dis- 
covery, brought  new  elements  into  the  life  of 
Europe,  and  resulted  in  social  and  political  changes 
of  great  importance. 

Yet  behind  these  causes  lay  earlier  and  more 
fundamental  ones.  The  real  secret  of  the  renais- 
sance is  the  gradual  change  in  the  view  of  life, 
which  begins  far  back  in  the  middle  ages.  It  dawns 
in  the  songs  of  the  trouvere  and  troubadour  in 
France  as  early  as  the  twelfth  century,  in  the  min- 
nesingers of  Germany,  in  the  love  songs  of  the 
Italian  poets  preceding  Dante.  It  consisted  of  a 
new  love  for  life  and  nature,  the  increase  to  a  dom- 
inant tone  of  what  had  been  but  a  minor  note  in 
the  mediasval  world. 

Obviously  this  fundamental  change  in  the  at- 
titude tcward  life  is  a  resultant  of  many  subtle 
causes  ;  but  it  gathers  up  under  itself  those  which 
are  both  logically,  and  in  time,  primary  in  social 
progress.  Indeed  the  greatest  importance  of  changes 
in  laws  and  institutions,  and  of  progress  in  in- 
vention and  discovery,  is  in  the  effect  these  changes 
have  upon  the  personal  ideal  and  attitude  of  the 
multitude  of  individuals.  As  the  moral  world  is 
a  world  of  persons,  so  its  character  is  dependent 
upon  that  of  the  persons  who  make  up  its  life. 
The  general  ideal  which  is  the  molding  force  in 
an  epoch  is  but  the  sum  or  product  of  the  personal 


180       THE   ETHICS   OF  SOCIAL   RECONSTRUCTION 

ideals  of  the  individuals  who  compose  the  world 
in  the  time.  Public  opinion  is  but  the  resultant 
combination  of  private  opinions.  To  explain  fully 
any  social  condition  one  must  turn  to  the  ideals 
which  the  men  and  women  of  the  given  society  seek. 

It  is  significant  that  the  great  reforms  of  history 
have  all  been  disappointing — when  judged  by  the 
expectations  of  the  reformer.  Even  such  world 
movements  as  the  reformation,  or  the  French  and 
American  revolutions,  have  failed  to  realize  the 
dreams  of  those  who  sought  to  bring  them  into 
being.  We  can  scarcely  imagine  to  day  the  hopes 
of  the  patriots  of  the  world  at  the  time  of  the 
American  revolution.  They  believed  that  in  the 
new  world  a  nation  with  perfect  liberty  was  being 
founded,  giving  equal  opportunity  and  social 
justice  to  all.  We  who  come  after  the  e^^ent,  who 
see  the  mismanagement  of  our  cities,  and  the 
debauching  of  our  political  life,  we  can  but  wonder 
at  the  vain  dreams  of  the  reformers. 

The  poets  who  preceded  and  accompanied  the 
French  revolution  believed  that  through  it  the 
golden  age  would  dawn  for  the  human  race.  But 
an  ocean  of  blood  failed  to  wash  clean  the  human 
spirit.  Greed  and  selfishness  asserted  themselves 
in  France  as  elsewhere  ;  and  the  condition  of  her 
people  to-day  is  still  far  removed  from  the  golden 
epoch.     The  French  revolution  is    worth  to  the 


THE   ETHICS   OP*   SOCIAL   HEOONSTRUCTION       181 

world  all  that  it  cost ;  the  value  of  its  reaffirmation 
of  nobler  ideals  cannot  be  overestimated  ;  but  it 
was  far  from  realizing  the  hopes  of  those  who 
aided  to  bring  it  into  being. 

Social  progress  is  slow,  and  must  always  be  so. 
The  new  condition  is  but  a  gradual  modification  of 
the  old.  A  great  forward  leap  is  more  apparent 
than  real :  it  is  possible  only  when  force  has  been 
gathered  up  under  the  surface  for  a  long  period  of 
time,  and  suddenly  comes  to  light  and  changes 
external  institutions. 

The  reasons  for  this  lie  in  the  very  nature  of  life 
itself.  If  the  law  of  struggle  does  not  hold  en- 
tirely in  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  world,  it  is 
nevertheless  an  undeniable  fact  everywhere  in  the 
physical  realm.  In  the  struggle  for  material  ends, 
for  one  to  have  more  does  sometimes  mean  that  an- 
other must  have  less.  As  long  as  there  is  progress 
the  material  conditions  of  life  cannot  be  the  same 
for  all ;  and  however  high  we  may  raise  those  at 
the  bottom  of  society,  their  condition  must  seem 
miserable  when  compared  with  the  state  of  those 
above. 

Another  fact  which  sentimental  philanthropy 
habitually  ignores,  is  the  coexistence  of  types  in 
the  moral  world.  This  is  a  fact  parallel  to  that  co- 
existence of  organic  types  which  biology  makes 
clear  to  us.     Though  higher  and  higher  forms  have 


182       THE   ETHICS   OF   SOCIAL  RECONSTEUCTION 

successively  taken  precedence  in  the  struggle  of 
evolution,  this  rarely  means  the  complete  disap- 
pearance of  earlier  types.  Thus,  on  the  earth  to- 
day are  examples  of  most  of  the  typical  forms  of 
organic  life,  from  the  unicellular  protozoan  to  the 
highest  mammals.  Similarly,  in  the  moral  world, 
any  great  city  presents  a  coexistence  of  moral  types 
from  savagery  to  civilization.  How  all  the  world 
is  gathered  up  in  the  space  of  a  few  square  miles  ! 
The  degradation  of  the  bushmen  of  South  Africa, 
the  voluptuous  madness  of  Chaldsea,  the  wealth  and 
social  extravagance  of  decadent  Rome,  the  hunger 
for  knowledge  of  the  philosophers,  the  aspirations 
of  the  mediaeval  saints, — all  these  are  in  Paris  or 
any  great  city  of  the  world.  Down  the  long  boule- 
vards sweeps  the  endless  stream  of  carriages,  with 
liveried  coachmen  and  gay  or  wearied  occupants. 
Along  the  side- walk  surges  the  human  sea.  Here 
a  dreamer  with  the  hope  of  to-morrow  in  his  far- 
looking  eyes  ;  there  a  beggar,  deformed  and 
degraded,  holding  out  a  repulsive  hand.  Here  trips 
merrily  a  child,  and  next,  a  bold-staring  wanton  in 
gaudy  clothes.  Faces  pinched  and  wan  with  hun- 
ger and  despair,  faces  heavy  and  coarse  with  the 
self-given  mark  of  Cain. 

The  night  approaches,  and  over  it  all  rests  the 
light  of  the  evening  like  a  benediction.  With  the 
night  comes  release  to  the  tired  toilers,  the  invitation 


THE   ETHICS   OF   SOCIAL   KECONSTEUCTION       183 

to  renewed  merriment  to  those  who  seek  gay 
dissipation  ;  but  with  the  night  are  unloosed  the 
human  beasts  of  prey.  The  lights  of  the  city  shut 
out  the  stars  of  heaven  with  a  nearer  and  cheaper 
glare.  Under  it  flows  the  stream  of  women  whom 
choice,  or  necessity,  or  social  wrong,  has  made  the 
repulsive  harpies  of  the  street.  Down  the  dark 
alleys  slink  the  thieves.  Into  the  dives  and  concert 
halls  wander  the  sailor,  the  ignorant,  the  parasites, 
to  whom  the  painted  hags  offer  the  debris  of  what 
once  was  womanhood.  The  sea  of  life  may  surge 
into  a  madder  storm,  or  sink  into  calm,  but  over  it 
shine  the  stars  of  God,  mysterious,  silent,  moving 
with  a  resistless  flight  so  harmonious  that  it  seems 
like  rest. — It  is  not  strange  that  philanthropy  falls 
short  of  the  human  problem  ! 

It  is  true,  the  modification  may  be  much  more 
rapid  in  the  moral  than  in  the  jihysical  world  ;  and 
it  may  be  possible  through  education  to  change 
completely  a  type  in  one  or  two  generations  ;  yet 
the  divergences  in  moral  type  mean  that  the  same 
stimuli  cannot  be  used  upon  all.  The  appeal  that 
moves  one  is  lost  upon  another ;  and  every  social 
reform  is  limited  and  hampered  by  the  fact  that 
the  concrete  stuff  of  human  nature  is  not  all  equally 
plastic  in  the  hands  of  the  reformer. 

For  these  reasons,  and  because,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  social  structure  is  an  outgrowth  of  personal 


184       THE   ETHICS   OF   SOCIAL   RECOlSrSTRUCTION 

ideals,  progress  must  be  slow,  and  all  schemes  for 
suddenly  bringing  in  the  golden  epoch  must  be  in- 
effectual. It  is  the  mistake  of  every  reformer  to 
exaggerate  the  importance  of  his  own  measure.  He 
lifts  the  chain  of  social  facts  by  a  single  link,  and 
imagines  that  it  all  depends  upon  the  one  he  holds 
in  his  hand.  He  fails  to  see  that  each  link  in  the 
chain  may  be  regarded  in  the  same  way,  and  that 
to  change  one  is  by  no  means  to  alter  the  whole. 
Thus  in  the  past,  pantisocracies,  communes,  repub- 
lics, democracies,  altrurias,  all  schemes  for  regen- 
erating human  nature  suddenly,  have  proved 
unsuccessful. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  minor  experiments 
of  this  kind  in  America  was  the  Brook  Farm  move- 
ment. This  social  experiment  was  organized  by 
some  of  the  noblest  spirits  our  country  has  seen. 
When  it  is  said  that  men  and  women  like  George 
William  Curtis,  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  Margaret 
Fuller,  were  members,  and  that  Emerson  and 
Theodore  Parker  were  constant  visitors  and  friends 
of  the  undertaking,  the  character  of  those  con- 
nected with  it  is  evident.  They  were  to  live 
simpler  and  nobler  lives,  devoting  certain  hours 
each  day  to  physical,  certain  to  mental  labor. 
Soon  however  the  novelty  of  the  experiment  wore 
off,  and  misadjustments  were  evident.  Hawthorne 
speaks  with   gentle   irony   of  his   performance   of 


THE  ETHICS   OF   SOCIAL  EECOl^STRUCTION       186 

various  physical  tasks,  including  the  care  of 
Margaret  Fuller's  "transcendental  heifer,"  and 
adds  emphatically :  "It  is  my  opinion  that  a  man's 
soul  may  be  buried  and  perish  under  a  dung 
heap,  just  as  well  as  under  a  pile  of  money." 
Others  have  expressed  their  disillusionment.  A 
group  of  people  came  into  the  community  who  were 
in  no  way  interested  in  its  aims,  but  who  sought 
selfishly  the  culture  possible  through  association 
with  nobler  spirits ;  and  soon  the  enterprise  was 
seen  to  be  financially  and  practically  a  failure.  It 
was,  it  is  true,  what  the  similar  "  New  Harmony" 
experiment  has  been  called — "a  successful  failure." 
Though  it  failed  in  every  way  to  bring  in  a  new 
social  organization,  and  regenerate  the  institutional 
world,  its  reaffirmation  of  nobler  social  ideals  is 
one  of  the  forces  deepening  oar  inner  life.  The 
most  that  has  ever  been  accomplished  by  such 
schemes  is  a  slight  modification  of  social  conditions, 
and  a  reaffirmation  of  ideals  which  deepen  life,  and 
make  further  progress  possible. 

What  has  been  accomplished  by  past  schemes 
and  reforms  throws  light  upon  what  we  should 
expect  from  those  most  widely  heralded  in  the 
present.  Of  the  reforms  advocated  to-day,  prob- 
ably no  other  has  the  measure  of  significance  which 
belongs  to  those  gathered  together  under  the 
general  head   of  socialism.     Whether  one  be  in 


186       THE   ETHICS   OF  SOCIAL  RECONSTRUCTION 

favor  of  these  reforms  or  opposed  to  them,  no  one 
can  read  the  literature  of  socialism  without  being 
impressed  with  the  nobility  of  the  ideals  held  by 
the  leaders  of  this  movement.  Yet  when  we  are 
told  by  socialists,  that  with  certain  institutional 
changes,  such  as  placing  the  control  of  industries 
in  the  hands  of  the  state,  we  shall  have  at  once  the 
golden  epoch,  that  poverty  and  idleness  will  dis- 
appear, and  all  those  who  are  now  greedy  and 
selfish  will  then  be  earnest  and  generous  seekers  of 
the  public  welfare,  we  may  answer  that  history 
upon  every  page  tells  distinctly  the  contrary. 
However  much  or  little  might  be  the  social  amelior- 
ation resulting  from  these  institutional  changes,  it 
would  be  but  a  slight  step  in  the  wide  area  that 
must  be  traversed  by  the  human  spirit  before  it 
attains  more  than  a  dream  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven. 

What  is  true  of  so  broad  a  movement  as  social- 
ism applies  much  more  strongly  to  narrower  efforts. 
With  such  a  reform  as  prohibition  we  may  be  in 
sympathy,  or  we  may  regard  it  as  a  mistaken 
method  of  dealing  with  a  recognized  evil ;  but,  in 
either  case,  when  a  prohibitionist  tells  us  that  if  we 
will  only  carry  out  his  measure,  all  evils  in  the 
world  will  disappear ;  that  vice  and  crime  will  be 
eradicated,  and  all  lazy  people  will  be  earnest  and 
energetic,  we  may  well  answer  again  that  history 


THE  ETHICS  OF  SOCIAL  RECONSTRUCTION        187 

upon  every  page  teaches  us  the  contrary.  Indeed 
the  degeneration  which  expresses  itself  in  drunken- 
ness finds  an  outlet  in  other  coarsely  exciting  vices, 
such  as  gambling  and  licentiousness ;  and,  some- 
times, to  stop  arbitrarily  one  expression  may  even 
increase  another. 

Woman's  suffrage  is  one  of  the  significant  move- 
ments of  the  present,  expressive  as  it  is  of  the 
general  progress  in  equalizing  the  relations  of  men 
and  women  which  is  one  of  the  most  hopeful 
aspects  of  modern  civilization.  When,  however, 
woman  suffragists  assert  that  by  carrying  out  their 
measure,  municipal  and  national  politics  will  be 
freed  from  all  vitiating  influences,  vice  and  crime 
will  disappear,  social  relations  will  be  made  ideal, 
we  must  answer  again  that  human  experience 
everywhere  is  diametrically  opposed  to  such  an 
expectation.  Indeed  the  sudden  admission  of  a 
body  of  people  to  a  right  or  duty  they  have  not 
previously  exercised,  however  valuable  may  be  its 
ultimate  results,  is  sure  to  be  accompanied  by  tem- 
porary evils  and  disturbances,  which  retard  prog- 
ress while  they  last. 

The  same  principles  apply  to  tax  and  currency 
reforms,  and  to  all  other  schemes  for  the  readjust- 
ment of  social  conditions  and  relations.  The  most 
that  any  reform  is  capable  of  accomplishing  is  an 
improvement  of  social  conditions  in  certain  limited 


188       THE   ETHICS   OF   SOCIAL   RECONSTRUCTION" 

ways,  and  an  education  of  the  popular  mind  which 
changes  its  ideals,  and  hence  leads  to  later  progress 
in  institutions.  But  human  nature  will  remain 
much  the  same ;  the  law  of  struggle  will  still  apply 
to  the  material  world ;  all  efforts  toward  social 
reform  must  continue  to  deal  with  a  variety  of 
moral  types ;  and  progress  will  always  depend  upon 
the  relatively  slow  change  in  personal  ideals. 

In  all  unfounded  expectations  of  immediate 
social  regeneration  there  are  two  errors :  the  mis- 
take  of  imagining  that  progress  can  be  sudden; 
and  the  error  of  supposing  that  a  condition  of 
statical  perfection  is  either  possible  or  desirable  in 
human  society.  Even  Spencer  makes  this  second 
mistake,  which  is  a  commonplace  in  most  of  the 
Utopias,  from  Plato's  Republic,  the  earliest  and 
noblest  of  them  all,  to  Bellamy's  Looking  Back- 
ward, or  whatever  the  latest  may  be.  Plato's 
desire  to  construct  a  statically  perfect  state  blinds 
him  to  the  significance  of  the  deeper  elements  of 
individual  life,  and  distorts  the  perspective  in 
which  he  sees  personal  and  social  relations.  Hence 
he  would  banish  the  poets,  believing  that  all  finer 
sensitiveness  in  feeling  is  opposed  to  the  perfect 
courage  and  hardihood  of  the  warrior.  He  would 
destroy  the  family,  because  private  affections  may 
at  times  be  opposed  to  public  patriotism.     He  fails 


THE   ETHICS   OF   SOCIAL   RECONSTRUCTION       189 

to  see  that  by  destroying  tlie  positive  content  of  per- 
f:.onal  life,  the  dynamic  cause  of  all  noble  action  is 
lost,  and  the  very  end  sought  is  defeated  ;  for  men, 
ceasing  to  be  men,  are  not  even  efficient  cog-wheels 
in  the  machine  of  the  State.  Men  are  not  rendered 
heroic,  as  Plato  imagined,  by  being  made  indiffer- 
ent to  life  and  death,  but  by  learning  to  love 
something  even  more  than  life.  Such  errors  as 
these  are  present  in  Campanella's  City  of  the  Sun, 
Bacon's  New  Atlantis,  More's  Utopia,  and  all 
presentations  of  statically  perfect  societies. 

Life  is  always  dynamic  and  progressive,  and 
therefore  is  it  ever  incomplete  and  imperfect ;  its 
weakness  is  but  the  corollary  of  its  greatness. 
Social  progress  must  always  be  slow,  and  is  the 
outgrowth  of  changes  in  the  personal  ideal.  Hence 
the  ethical  attitude  toward  the  problem  of  social 
reconstruction  is  evident : 

I.  We  should  welcome  cordially  every  reform 
which  we  believe  will  be  helpful,  however  slight 
seems  the  good  which  may  result  from  it.  For  it  is 
by  such  slight  movements  that  the  world  grows  on 
toward  the  kingdom  of  the  spirit.  Especially 
when  a  reform  in  which  we  believe  is  condemned, 
does  it  need  our  assistance.  It  is  when  "  truth  is 
on  the  scaffold  "  that  it  demands  our  consecration. 
To  run  with  the  crowd  behind  an  already  victorious 
standard  is  a  cheap  and  ineffectual  service  of  the 


190      THE   ETHICS   OF   SOCIAL  RECONSTRUCTION 

world's  need.  We  have  abandoned  the  rack  and 
the  stake  of  mediaeval  persecution ;  but  the  pillory 
of  the  modern  sensational  newspaper,  and  the  scaf- 
fold of  public  abuse  are  as  bitter  tortures  as  one 
may  meet. 

II.  With  a  cordial  welcome  and  assistance  for 
those  movements  in  which  we  believe,  we  should 
recognize  the  limitations  in  the  greatest  reform. 
The  sober  lesson  of  history  is  that  there  can  be  no 
sudden  dawning  of  the  golden  epoch.  Fanatical 
support  has  done  more  harm  to  great  movements 
than  bitter  opposition.  It  is  true,  the  world  could 
not  spare  its  fanatics,  but  it  might  well  spare  their 
fanaticism.  Their  greatness  was  the  greatness  of 
their  positive  belief,  not  of  its  narrowness  and  lim- 
itations. Had  they  believed,  not  less  in  their  par- 
ticular reform,  but  more  in  other  and  compensating 
truths,  their  service  to  the  world  might  have  been 
even  greater,  and  a  vast  waste  of  destructive  reac- 
tion might  have  been  saved.  Noble  narrowness  has 
often  giv^en  priceless  service  to  the  world — but  be- 
cause it  was  noble,  not  because  it  was  narrow  ;  and 
its  results  include  deplorable  tendencies  beside 
those  which  are  helpful.  Evolution  is  more  quiet 
and  less  startling  then  revolution,  and  narrow, 
destructive  tendencies  catch  the  eye  more  quickly 
than  broad,  constructive  ones.  But  the  narrow 
movements  are  as  negatively  wasteful  as  they  are 


THE  ETHICS   OF   SOCIAL  RECONSTRUCTION       191 

definite  and  clear  in  their  positive  value ;  and 
broad,  constructive  movements  are  as  unhampered 
in  their  helpfulness,  as  they  are  free  from  striking 
and  costly  reactions. 

III.  We  should  try  to  elevate  the  individual  ideal 
through  education.  This  is  the  constant  reform 
problem.  But  by  education  is  meant,  not  school 
training  alone  :  in  the  work  of  the  education  of  the 
people  unite  countless  forces.  The  stern  necessities 
of  nature,  the  exigencies  of  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence, are  most  important  among  these.  They  are 
constantly  building  up  strength  of  character,  and 
equipping  men  for  the  business  of  life.  But  aside 
from  these  fundamental  forces,  which  we  can  only 
meet  valiantly,  but  are  powerless  to  change  or 
abrogate,  there  are  many,  besides  the  school  itself, 
which  are  partly  within  our  control.  If  education 
be  something  more  than  the  sharpening  of  the  tools 
of  the  mind,  if  it  be  the  uplifting  of  the  popular 
view  of  life,  the  broadening  of  the  general  intelli- 
gence, the  culture  which  gives  each  some  power  of 
sober  and  restrained  judgment,  and  leads  him  to 
love  and  serve  the  common  good,  its  accomplish- 
ment rests  upon  the  school,  supported  and  broad- 
ened by  the  countless  forces  of  culture  whose 
establishment  and  promotion  depends  to  some 
extent  upon  our  effort  and  consecration.  Such 
education  is  constant  reformation .  It  works  steadily 


192       THE   ETHICS   OF   SOCIAL   EECONSTEUCTION 

toward  the  elevation  of  the  ideal  of  life — that 
creative  force  behind  all  social  conditions  and 
changes,  to  which  in  the  last  resort  they  must  be 
referred. 

In  our  own  time  and  country,  among  the  various 
ideals  which  dominate  our  lives,  that  of  material 
prosperity,  of  accumulating  wealth,  has  certainly 
been  prominent.  The  working  out  of  this  ideal 
shows  in  the  extremes  of  poverty  and  wealth,  in 
the  grinding  down  of  the  lower  classes,  and  the 
relentless  sacrifice  of  culture  and  science.  A  vast 
material  civilization  has  been  built  up,  but  greed 
and  selfishness  abound  on  every  hand.  Such  social 
conditions  are  the  natural  outcome  of  a  certain  ideal 
of  life ;  and  any  effort  at  a  reform  of  the  social 
conditions  which  does  not  involve  a  radical  change 
in  the  ideal,  is  at  best  but  cutting  off  the  tops  of 
the  weeds  and  leaving  the  roots  to  grow. 

Were  we  to  attain  a  saner  view  of  life,  how 
inevitable  would  be  a  change  in  our  social  con- 
ditions. Were  a  higher  value  placed  upon  such 
learning  as  was  feverishly  sought  in  the  renais- 
sance, or  upon  the  negative  spiritual  life  after 
which  the  mediaeval  world  aspired,  how  widely 
different  would  inevitably  be  the  external  con- 
ditions of  society.  Without  returning  to  such 
standards,  a  change  in  our  ideal  which  would  lead 
us  to  desire  more  earnestly  to  realize  the  highest 


THE   ETHICS   OF   SOCIAL   RECONSTRUCTION      193 

possibilities  of  our  lives,  would  result  in  the  most 
helpful  changes  in  our  social  conditions.  The 
struggle  for  mere  wealth  would  grow  less  intense. 
Culture  and  science  would  seek  smaller  places,  as 
we  came  to  appreciate  the  value  of  a  life  of  peace, 
and  of  close  relation  to  nature.  The  over- 
crowding of  the  cities  would  be  lessened.  A 
greater  social  justice  would  be  attained  in  our 
human  relations. 

The  education  which  can  lead  to  such  an  uplift- 
ing of  the  popular  ideal  is  priceless.  Accomplished 
even  in  a  few  individuals  its  influence  is  incalcula- 
ble. It  is  impossible  to  estimate  the  worth  of  one 
man  absolutely  consecrated  to  a  noble  aim.  Twelve 
men,  under  the  leadership  of  another,  once  changed 
the  aspect  of  the  world  ;  and  twelve  men,  equally 
consecrated  to  an  equally  noble  aim,  might  do  the 
same  thing  again  at  any  time.  Such  education 
would  bring  no  sudden  dawning  of  the  golden 
epoch  ;  but  it  would  lead  to  growing  improvements 
in  social  conditions,  as  it  deepened  and  ennobled 
the  significance  of  personal  life. 

ly.  We  should  seek  to  live  in  conduct  the 
highest  ideal  we  know,  and  to  express  it  in  har- 
mony with  the  lives  of  all.  The  fulfilment  of 
personal  duties  in  social  relations  is  the  crowning 
service  of  the  world. 

"  Nor  knowest  thou  what  argument 

Thy  life  to  thy  neighbor's  creed  ha»  lent". 


194      THE   ETHICS   OF   SOCIAL  RECONSTRUCTION 

The  truest  teaching  is   living;   and  the  primary- 
philanthropy  is  to  live  a  good  life. 

It  is  difficult  for  people  to  whom  life  is  easy  to 
appreciate  the  conditions  under  which  others  are 
compelled  to  struggle.  This  is  the  curse  of  success. 
Class  judgments  are  always  wrong;  for  each  class 
appreciates  its  own  positive  excellencies,  and  the 
limitations  of  others.     The  reason  for  this  is  that 
the  one  is  known  from  within,  the  other  from  with- 
out.    The  capitalist  sees  the  ignorance  and  folly 
of  his  workmen,  the  fanaticism  of  their  wasteful 
strikes ;  he  does  not  appreciate  the  nobility  and 
the  bitterness  of  the  struggle  to  find  and  keep  the 
work  and  wages  which  mean  life  and  the  bread  of 
life  to   loved  ones.       The  workingman  sees    the 
external  prosperity  of  the  capitalist,  the  seeming 
selfishness  of  his  life ;  he  does  not  know  of  the 
days  of  struggle  and  the  sleepless  nights  of  thought, 
which  made  possible  the  keeping  in  action  of  a 
great  undertaking  during   "hard    times."       The 
aristocrat  sees  the  rudeness  of  the  man  of  the 
people,  and  fails  to  realize  his  simple  earnestness 
and  truth.     The  man  of  the  people  recognizes  the 
artificial,  insincere  elements  in  the  life  of  the  other, 
but  fails  to  appreciate  his  refinement  and  potential 
ability  to  rise  in  answer  to  a  deep  call  of  the  spirit. 

In  this  and  similar  ways  our  view  of  life  is 
largely  determined  by  our  immediate  surroundings. 


THE   ETHICS   OF   SOCIAL  RECONSTRUCTION       196 

We  go  to  the  country,  and  if  the  burden  of 
existence  does  not  rest  heavily  upon  us,  a  little 
time  of  rest  and  quiet  makes  the  world  seem  a 
beautiful  and  serene  place.  We  go  to  a  great  city, 
and  join  in  its  rush,  and  face  some  of  the  darker 
phases  of  its  life,  and  in  a  little  time  the  world 
seems  one  endless  and  restless  stream  of  toil  and 
endeavor.  It  is  thus  easy  to  lose  sight  of  all  save 
the  most  recent  experiences,  and  to  see  the  world 
from  the  perspective  of  the  last  events  in  our  lives. 

It  is  possible  to  make  headway  against  this  beset- 
ting error  only  by  constant  watchfulness,  by  seek- 
ing to  study  all  phases  of  life  and  to  take  points 
of  view  other  than  our  usual  ones.  Any  partial 
view  of  life,  if  it  be  sincere,  contains  some  measure 
of  truth,  and  every  partial  view  of  life  is  limited 
and  involves  mistakes.  We  should  seek  first  to  un- 
derstand, instead  of  condemning,  attitudes  widely 
different  from  our  own.  When  we  meet  one  who 
has  reacted  bitterly  against  the  world,  and  would 
overturn  its  institutions,  we  should  ask  what  it  is 
in  the  world  that  could  bring  one  to  such  a  pass. 
Anarchist  and  socialist,  pessimist  and  optimist, 
social  reformer  and  evolutionist,  each  has  some 
true  reaction  upon  the  real  world ;  and  to  appreci- 
ate that  is  to  broaden  our  relation  to  the  whole 
truth  of  things. 

Aristocratic   prejudices  are  the  result,  and  in 


196       THE   ETHICS   OF   SOCIAL   RECONSTRUCTION 

turn  the  cause,  of  artificial  social  conditions.  There 
is  in  every  society  the  danger  of  settling  down  into 
fixed  forms.  With  few  exceptions,  the  older  a 
community,  the  greater  is  the  measure  of  such 
artificiality  present.  Such  artificial  forms  destroy 
life  :  they  foster  inefficiency  at  the  top  of  the  social 
structure,  and  hamper  genius  at  the  bottom.  Hence 
there  is  need  of  continual  protest.  The  personal 
will  which  is  the  moving  power  in  history,  is  the 
one  force  capable  of  struggling  effectively  with  the 
inevitable  tendency  toward  crystallization  in 
external  conditions.  It  is  the  history  of  every 
great  movement  that  it  began  as  the  idea  and  inspi- 
ration of  one  man,  spread  from  him  to  others,  and 
gradually  took  shape  in  institutional  form.  Then 
the  life  ceases  by  degrees  to  reside  in  the  individ- 
uals, and  is  supposed,  in  some  way,  to  belong  to 
the  institution  itself.  When  this  point  is  reached 
the  movement  has  lost  its  vitality  ;  the  institution 
becomes  more  and  more  a  dead  form ;  and  the  pro- 
cess must  be  begun  anew.  Hence  the  need  for  the 
perpetual  affirmation  of  the  individual  will  and 
ideal. 

Thus  the  value  of  social  unrest :  with  all  its 
economic  waste,  it  is  the  most  hopeful  sign  in  our 
country  today ;  for  it  proves  that  we  are  alive  and 
not  dead,  that  we  are  struggling  with  our  problem. 
It  is  always  wrong  to  judge  social  conditions  from 


THE  ETHICS   OF   SOCIAL  EECONSTEUCTION       197 

the  point  of  view  of  our  own  private  comfort ;  for 
progress  always  involves  some  pain  and  disturb- 
ance, and  the  true  human  solidarity  makes  this 
affect  each  to  some  extent.  We  are  all  employers 
or  employees  in  some  aspect  of  our  lives.  Even 
minor  problems,  such  as  that  of  domestic  service, 
express  the  princii)les  of  the  entire  social  relation- 
ship. Present  conditions  in  the  household  cause 
widespread  discontent ;  and  the  wish  is  often  heard 
expressed  that  we  had  a  ' '  servant  class  in  America' ' , 
that  our  ho  iiseholds  might  be  conducted  with  greater 
ease.  We  should  remember  that  nothing  runs  more 
smoothly  for  a  time  than  slavery.  Impudence  is  a 
low  expression  of  an  independent  spirit,  but  it  is 
better  than  none.  To  one  who  takes  an  ideal  view 
of  human  life  all  honest  work  is  ennobling ;  but 
the  most  fall  below  that  plane,  and  lose  their  self- 
respect  in  occupations  popularly  looked  upon  with 
contempt.  As  long  as  certain  vocations  are  de- 
spised, let  us  be  glad  that  our  people  refuse  them. 
Snobbery  and  servility  go  together.  The  "place" 
of  any  man  or  woman  is  to  be  first  of  all  a  human 
being,  and  only  second,  if  at  all,  a  cog-wheel  in  the 
social  machine. 

Social  relations  are  countless  and  intricate,  but 
the  same  principle  applies  everywhere.  It  is  the 
sum  of  slight  services  and  insignificant  actions 
that  makes  up  the  social  welfare.     When  Darwin 


198       THE  ETHICS  OF  SOCIAL  RECONSTRUCTION 

showed  that  the  soil  is  made  by  its  elements  being 
passed  through  the  bodies  of  earth-worms,  the 
scientific  world  was  filled  with  a  shock  of  surprise. 
It  seemed  impossible  that  such  despised  organisms 
could  create  the  basis  upon  which  all  civilization 
rests.  So  in  the  human  world,  it  is  not  the  few 
striking  actions  which  make  up  the  happiness  and 
progress  of  mankind,  but  rather  the  quickly  for- 
gotten details  which  taken  separately  seem  insig- 
nificant. In  the  effort  to  appreciate  various  forms 
of  greatness,  let  us  not  underestimate  the  value  of 
a  simply  good  life.  Just  to  be  good  :  to  keep  life 
pure  from  degrading  elements,  to  make  it  con- 
stantly helpful  in  little  ways  to  those  who  are 
touched  by  it,  to  keep  one's  spirit  always  sweet, 
and  avoid  all  manner  of  petty  anger  and  irrita- 
bility— that  is  an  ideal  as  noble  as  it  is  diflicult. 
It  is  not  the  size  of  the  canvas  that  determines  the 
value  of  the  work  of  art ;  it  is  not  the  mechanical 
extent  of  the  action  that  gives  it  value  and  harmony 
in  the  artistic  creation  of  a  human  life.  To  seek  to 
be  true  to  our  best  insight,  to  express  in  personal 
life  the  noblest  ideal  we  know,  is  the  highest  pos- 
sible service  in  the  problem  of  social  reconstruction. 


IX. 
THE  NEW  SOCIAL   IDEAL 


THE  modern  world  stands  on  the  brink  ot  the 
unknown.  It  is  impossible  to  foresee 
adequately  the  developments  of  even  a 
few  decades,  and  changes  of  momentous  import- 
ance are  occurring  in  every  direction.  This  must 
be  true  to  some  extent  of  all  epochs,  for  each  is 
modern  to  the  men  of  it.  They  see  the  past  com- 
pleted in  the  present ;  but  it  is  with  difficulty  that 
they  can  detect  even  a  few  of  the  organic  filaments 
which  are  weaving  the  world  of  to-morrow.  But 
in  a  singular  way  this  is  true  of  our  own  time.  A 
new  human  ideal  is  taking  possession  of  the  world, 
the  consequences  of  which  will  be  limitless  in 
significance.  All  past  epochs  of  civilization  found 
their  justification  in  the  few  men  who  came  to  the 
surface  and  had  some  share  in  the  ends  of  life.  It 
was  never  dreamed  that  all  men  might  have  some 
part  in  these  ends,  and  should  have  every  oppor- 
tunity to  seek  them.  Ancient  democracies  were 
not  democratic  in  the  modern  sense.  They  were 
oligarchies,  where  within  the  ruling  class  some 
measure  of  democratic  relations  prevailed.  But 
this  class  stood  on  the  backs  of  the  mass  of  the 
people.  Even  Aristotle,  humane  and  far-seeing 
as  he  was,  assumed  frankly  that  civilization  must 
always  rest  upon  slavery.     Throughout  the  middle 


202  THE   NEW   SOCIAL   IDEAL 

ages  similar  conditions  prevailed.  The  vocations 
respected  for  themselves  were,  as  in  the  ancient 
world,  war  and  political  life,  with  the  addition  of 
the  priestly  career.  The  fundamental  activities  of 
society,  agricultural,  commercial,  industrial,  were 
carried  on  by  slaves,  or  men  but  little  removed 
from  the  condition  of  serfs. 

In  the  art  of  the  ancient  and  mediaeval  world  it 
is  religion,  the  traditions  of  the  ruling  class,  or 
war  and  chivalry  that  furnish  the  subject,  never 
common  humanity.  In  the  literature  of  Europe  in 
all  centuries  preceding  the  renaissance,  there  is  but 
an  occasional  glimpse  into  the  life  of  the  people. 
Hesiod  gives  their  despairing  wail,  and  Langland 
an  echo  of  their  misery  and  their  stubborn  endur- 
ance, but  these  are  isolated  exceptions.  Homer 
presents  a  rare  Thersites  only  to  make  him  an 
object  of  ridicule  ;  and  Dante  sublimely  and  arro- 
gantly ignores  the  existence  of  the  untutored  mass, 
whose  destiny  was  not  sufficiently  interesting  to 
him  to  Und  treatment  in  either  Hell  or  Heaven. 

But  the  era  of  humanity  has  arisen.  Art  is 
transformed  in  every  department.  The  sailor  at 
the  pumps  on  a  sinking  vessel,  the  fisher's  wife 
moaning  alone  in  the  grey  dawn,  the  pnysician 
beside  the  bed  of  the  child  whose  agonized  parents 
stand  beseechingly  in  the  background — these  fur- 
nish worthy  subjects    for    modern    painting.     I 


THE   NEW   SOCIAL  IDEAL  203 

remember  the  impression  of  this  thought  which 
was  made  upon  me  by  the  modern  gallery  in  the 
Academy  at  Florence.  Weeks  had  been  spent 
visiting  the  churches,  monasteries  and  galleries, 
studying  the  exquisite  remains  of  renaissance 
painting  ;  and  on  the  last  day  of  our  stay  in  Flor- 
ence, chiefly  from  curiosity,  we  found  our  way  into 
the  collection  of  pictures  by  modern  Italian  artists. 
The  result  was  unexpectedly  startling.  There  were 
very  few  worthy  paintings  among  these  ;  but  those 
which  did  stand  out  possessed  a  meaning  that  is 
not  found  in  the  paintings  of  the  renaissance.  One 
represented  the  dying  Raphael.  At  his  feet  knelt 
the  woman  he  loved,  tears  streaming  from  her 
eyes ;  at  his  side  sat  the  old  cardinal,  perplexed  and 
grave,  anxious  if  possible  to  soothe  the  painter's 
last  moments.  There  was  nothing  unusual  in  the 
scene ;  it  was  but  the  common  human  tragedy  ;  yet 
such  a  subject  is  not  found  in  all  the  paintings  of 
the  renaissance. 

Another  canvas  represented  the  painter  Fra 
Lippo  Lippi  making  love  to  the  nun  who  served  as 
his  model.  In  the  woman's  face  was  depicted  the 
awakened  struggle  between  the  life  to  which  she 
had  consecrated  herself,  the  old  ideal  she  had 
cherished,  and  the  world  of  new  desires  surging  up 
into  consciousness ;  not  even  Leonardo,  of  the 
painters  before  the  nineteenth  century,  could  have 
grasped  and  fixed  that  conflict. 


204  THE   NEW    SOCIAL  IDEAL 

The  third  and  most  powerful  picture  represented 
a  group  of  wandering  musicians  lost  in  the  snow, 
with  the  pitiless  winter  night  coming  on.  The 
instruments  of  their  craft  were  huddled  on  the 
ground.  The  man  was  half- kneeling,  with  hands 
raised  to  his  head  in  an  attitude  of  abject  despair. 
In  terror  his  little  lad  clung  to  him,  while  rigid 
and  still  on  the  ground  lay  a  girlish  woman  figure 
just  frozen  to  death.  All  about  were  the  pathless 
snow  fields  with  the  ominous  depth  of  the  forest 
behind.  It  is  only  a  common  tragedy ;  yet  only  a 
modern  artist  could  have  wrung  our  heart-strings 
with  that  human  appeal. 

And  art  is  learning  to  transfigure  the  humblest 
life  with  the  divine  significance  that  dwells  at  the 
heart  of  humanity,  and  is  greater  than  the  awe  of 
a  traditional  religion  or  the  splendor  of  an  old 
mythology.  Literature  is  fiooded  with  the  surging 
sea  of  common  life ;  its  old  limits  are  swamped, 
and  it  is  at  once  distorted  and  ennobled  by  the 
impulsion  of  new  forces.  The  novel  of  real  life, 
often  sordid  and  bare,  at  times  majestic  and  trans- 
figured, replaces  the  romance  of  heroes  and  the 
epic  of  kings. 

The  struggle  is  but  the  birth-throes  of  a  new 
ideal,  an  ideal  of  common  humanity.  It  is  not 
enough  for  us  that  here  and  there  a  rare  saint  or 
hero  attains,  it  is  not  enough   that  the  work  of 


THE   NEW   SOCIAL   IDEAL  206 

civilization  is  accomplished  in  a  few  individuals. 
To  stand  upon  the  backs  of  a  dumb  multitude,  or 
furnish  our  own  shoulders  for  the  feet  of  arrogant 
heroes,  are  conceptions  equally  repulsive  and 
unendurable  to  us.  We  demand  life  for  ourselves, 
and  we  demand  it  for  every  human  being.  Our 
entire  society  is  being  transformed  by  the  desire  to 
give  every  man  and  woman,  together  with  our- 
selves, all  opportunity  and  help  in  striving  for 
life,  happiness,  culture,  intelligence,  helpfulness — 
all  ends  of  life  that  are  worth  seeking. 

There  is  something  thrilling  in  the  unquestioning 
faith  and  enthusiasm  with  which  the  world  is  turn- 
ing toward  this  ideal.  A  breath  fresh  and  strong, 
like  that  which  blows  through  the  sagas  of  the 
Norseland,  and  gives  their  endless  attractiveness 
to  its  Thors  and  Odins,  is  felt  in  the  new  impetus 
of  modern  life.  It  is  perhaps  because  we  are  uncon- 
scious of  the  implications  of  our  ideal  that  we  can 
champion  it  so  unquestioningly.  No  moral  effort 
of  history,  not  even  the  Christianization  of  Europe, 
or  the  conversion  of  Asia  to  Buddhism,  involved 
the  difficulties  and  perils  which  are  in  the  path  of 
this  supreme  attempt  of  modern  life.  As  children, 
if  young  enough,  will  try  any  task,  so  we  with  the 
enthusiasm  of  youth  challenge  the  universe  with 
our  supreme  ideal.  And  it  is  well  that  it  is  so,  for 
a  full  consciousness  of  the  significance  and   the 


206  THE   NEW   SOCIAL   IDEAL 

difficulty  of  the  task  we  have  set  before  ns  might 
paralyze  our  effort  and  unnerve  our  hands.  To 
carry  every  man  and  woman,  not  as  dependents, 
but  through  the  free  and  cooperative  activity  of 
each  with  all,  on  toward  all  the  ends  of  life  that 
are  worth  seeking,  is  inconceivably  and  appal- 
lingly difficult. 

Yet  some  measure  of  intelligent  appreciation 
of  the  magnitude  and  meaning  of  our  undertaking 
is  necessary  to  successful  action.  An  understand- 
ing of  the  immense  difference  between  modern 
civilization  and  those  epochs  which  have  preceded 
it,  is  indispensible  to  even  a  partial  achievement 
of  our  aim. 

In  America  the  new  ideal  is  more  frankly  taken 
as  the  object  of  civilization  than  anywhere  else  in 
the  world,  yet  it  is  as  well  throughout  Europe  the 
creative  force  modifying  all  expressions  of  life. 
England  stands  to-day  on  the  threshold  of  a  new 
epoch.  Her  imperialism  has  pushed  Anglo-Saxon 
speech  and  institutions  all  over  the  globe,  and 
developed  a  pride  of  race  and  nation  unequalled 
since  Rome.  But  within  herself  is  the  ferment  of 
a  new  life — if  not  the  dissolution  of  the  empire,  at 
least  the  reorganization  of  all  her  institutions  and 
activities.  The  English  character  is  conservative 
and  tenacious  of  old  forms  ;  yet  even  it  is  incapable 
of  resisting  the  forces  of  the  new  life.     Since  1870 


THE   NEW   SOCIAL   IDEAL  207 

England  has  seen  the  most  astounding  develop- 
ments in  the  education  of  her  people.  Before  that 
time  there  was  practically  no  distinctively  state 
education  in  England  ;  since  then  board  schools 
have  been  established  all  over  the  land,  and  suc- 
cessive parliaments  have  given  increased  grants  for 
popular  education.  The  result  is  the  creation  of  a 
great  democracy,  growing  increasingly  discontented 
under  the  admirable  oligarchic  rule  which  satisfied 
its  predecessors.  Parallel  with  the  educational 
movement  has  been  the  growth  of  ethical  and 
industrial  socialism,  and  the  permeation  over 
wider  areas  of  the  popular  life  of  the  new  human 
ideal. 

Germany  is  suffering  from  the  natural  reaction 
against  the  splendid  patriotism  of  the  seventies. 
National  unity  being  accomplished,  the  evils  of 
imperialism  become  evident,  and  the  deadly  same- 
ness of  institutions  reacting  toward  medievalism 
chills  the  enthusiasm  which  local  patriotism  and 
the  competition  between  small,  rival  states  pro- 
duced. But  the  spirit  of  social  democracy,  hard 
and  materialistic  as  it  is  in  some  aspects,  steadily 
gains  ground  in  Germany,  and  tends  to  supplant 
the  cold  arrogance  of  ritualistic  religion  and  the 
pessimism  that  accompanies  selfish  industrialism 
with  some  measure  of  enthusiasm  for  humanity. 

The  trail  of  the  serpent  of  cynical   unbelief  is 


208  THE   NEW   SOCIAL  IDEAL 

over  a  part  of  French  literature,  Paris  contains 
much  that  is  degenerate,  the  alternate  artificial 
effervescence  and  pale  sombreness  of  decadence  is 
present  in  much  French  art ;  and  the  result  of  thirty- 
years'  devotion  to  militarism  by  an  impulsive  peo- 
ple shows  sadly  in  the  insanity  that  supposes  an 
"honor  of  the  army,"  or  of  the  people,  can  exist 
which  is  not  based  upon  justice  and  truth.  Yet  the 
higher  meaning  of  the  French  revolution  is  not 
forgotten ;  and  under  the  hard  military  beau- 
rocracy,  and  in  spite  of  the  extravagant  reactions 
of  anarchy,  the  new  humanity  slumbers  in  France 
and  will  waken  one  day, — here  and  there  are  echoes 
of  its  dreams.  In  the  splendid  protest  of  the 
"intellectuals"  against  the  pitiless  dominance  of 
the  mob,  France  has  proved  that  her  culture  is  not 
all  decadence,  and  that  she  will  have  her  place  in 
the  world  of  to-morrow. 

Spain  is  sunk  under  the  corruption  of  her  insti- 
tutions ;  Italy  starves  beneath  her  unwarranted 
military  equipment ;  Austria  is  torn  by  race  dissen- 
sions ;  and  Russia  pushes  her  hard  imperialism 
remorselessly  onward.  But  in  Tolstoi  and  Ada 
Negri,  in  Dostoievsky  and  Sienkiewicz,  in  Carducci 
and  in  the  songs  of  the  Bohemian  peasants  are 
there  not  prophecies  for  to-morrow  ? 

The  end  of  a  century  does  mean  a  change  in 
human  affairs,  only  because  men  so  regard  it ;  and 


THE   NEW   SOCIAL  IDEAL  209 

everywhere  are  prophecies  that  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury will  differ  profoundly  from  the  nineteenth. 
The  proposal  for  a  peace  congress,  with  universal 
disarmament  as  its  aim,  made  by  the  one  absolute 
despot  in  Europe,  is  no  accident  of  selfish  diplo- 
macy. Politically  nationalistic,  Europe  is  indus- 
trially cosmopolitan.  Each  nation  is  bound  inti- 
mately with  others  through  the  exchange  of  indus- 
trial and  artistic  products.  Russia  attempted  at 
one  time  to  isolate  herself  from  the  rest  of  Europe, 
and  develop  without  foreign  capital  and  stimulus, 
and  she  has  learned  from  sad  experience  how  dis- 
astrous is  such  an  attempt.  It  is  not  the  Triple 
Alliance  or  the  Franco-Russian  understanding 
which  holds  Europe  together,  but  mutual  indus- 
trial dependence.  The  pressure  of  common  inter- 
ests is  a  tremendous  support  to  the  new  dream  of 
the  spirit  in  the  work  of  civilization. 

The  difficulty  in  carrying  out  the  new  ideal  is 
vastly  increased  by  the  complication  of  modern 
life.  This  is  true  even  of  the  most  superficial 
aspects  of  our  civilization.  The  mechanical  inven- 
tion and  discovery  which  furnishes  the  theme  for 
every  cheap  eulogy  of  our  epoch,  changes  in  all 
aspects  the  conditions  of  our  problem.  The  possi- 
bility which  earlier  periods  possessed  of  working 
out  a  solution  for  a  small  fragment  of  humanity, 
isolated  from   the  rest  of  mankind,  has   utterly 


210  THE  NEW   SOCIAL   IDEAL 

passed  away.  In  the  merest  mechanical  fashion 
the  world  has  been  closely  unified,  and  the  surface 
unity  finds  a  deeper  corollary  in  the  spiritual  life. 
The  entire  change  in  international  principles  and 
relations  since  the  eighteenth  century,  and  the 
dawn  of  an  era  of  greater  peace,  accentuate  the 
acuteness  of  the  industrial  problem. 

The  movement  from  the  country  to  the  city, 
which  is  steadily  going  on  all  over  the  world,  is  a 
cause  and  a  result  of  the  increasing  tension  in  the 
struggle  for  existence.  Vast  masses  of  human 
beings  are  heaped  together  in  great  cities.  In  one 
aspect  such  a  collection  of  humanity  as  is  London, 
seems  to  be  an  immense  vortex,  in  which  innumer- 
able lives  are  ceaselessly  drawn  down.  Up  and 
down  the  great  thoroughfares  surges  the  endless 
stream  of  men  and  women,  each  seeming  to  be 
merely  a  member  of  some  vast  organism,  yet  being 
an  individual,  with  his  own  circle  of  life,  and  his 
own  hopes  and  fears — like  the  vortex  rings  in  the 
ether  which  some  physicists  have  supposed  to  be 
the  ultimate  constituents  of  matter.  The  smoke 
from  a  thousand  factories  and  a  million  chimneys 
hangs  like  a  sombre  pall  over  the  immense  monster. 
Day  and  night  the  ceaseless  hum  of  the  city 
goes  on.  It  is  not  the  roll  of  the  myriad  omnibuses 
on  the  thoroughfares  ;  it  is  not  the  harsh  rattle  of 
the  underground  trains ;  it  is  not  the  murmur  of 


THE   NEW   SOCIAL   IDEAL  211 

the  million  voices,  harshly  or  tenderly  speaking, 
madly  or  mockingly  laughing ;  it  is  not  the  roar 
of  the  machinery,  or  the  echo  of  the  innumerable 
feet.  Deeper  than  any  of  these,  inspiring  at  once 
terror,  pity  and  love,  it  is  the  sound  formed  of 
many  tones,  containing  the  strident  notes  of  evil 
laughter  and  the  faint  echo  of  tender  sighs,  v^rith 
an  undertone  of  endless  and  measureless  yearning, 
and  a  vs^ild  note  of  joy  and  love  : — it  is  the  sound 
of  humanity  v^hich  the  Earth  Spirit  at  the  hum- 
ming loom  of  Time,  forever  is  weaving,  as  the 
revealing  yet  concealing  garment  of  God. 

In  the  day  it  is  dominated  by  the  noise  of  the 
nearer  vehicles,  in  the  night,  in  the  hours  just  past 
the  madder  rush  of  the  midnight,  it  sinks  into  the 
deep  sombre  hum,  and  then  is  almost  still.  Thrill- 
ing or  menacing,  it  is  a  fit  symbol  of  the  exigency 
of  the  crisis  that  civilization  must  meet  to-day. 
Were  the  tension  less  constant,  did  it  rise  and  fall 
fitfully  like  the  winds  or  the  sea,  it  would  seem 
less  ominous.  But  this  pressure  always  intense, 
this  sound  that  sinks  only  to  become  more  sombre — 
there  is  no  mistaking  the  significance  of  this. 

Such  changes  as  the  creation  of  great  cities  and 
the  transformation  of  industrial  relations  illustrate 
the  vast  increase  in  the  intellectual  problem  of 
civilization.  Man  changes  very  slowly  in  biological 
structure,  so  slowly  that  it  is  difficult  to  discover 


212  THE  NEW   SOCIAL   IDEAL 

any  increase  in  actual  brain-power  if  we  compare  a 
man  of  to-day  with  a  Greek  in  the  age  of  Pericles. 
That  is,  in  two  thousand  years  there  is  not  suffi- 
cient biological  advance  to  be  appreciable.  Yet  the 
accumulation  of  the  material  of  civilization  has 
been  doubled  more  than  once  within  a  century. 
The  progress  of  civilization  consists  chiefly  in  the 
accumulation  of  the  material  of  life,  and  in  the 
earlier  and  better  initiation  of  the  individual, 
through  education,  into  the  experience  of  the  race, 
that  he  may  take  and  use  his  inheritance  from  the 
past.  The  inherited  equipment  consists  of  mate- 
rial wealth,  mechanical  inventions  and  plants,  vast 
organized  institutions,  cities  and  means  of  com- 
munications, libraries,  museums, — in  fact  all  the 
apparatus  of  civilization.  The  objective  progress 
we  are  able  to  see  in  history  lies  almost  entirely  in 
the  increase  in  this  apparatus,  and  in  the  skill  to 
use  it  effectively. 

Unused  tools  are  always  a  burden  ;  and  unless 
the  inherited  equipment  of  culture  is  a  help  to  us, 
it  will  distinctly  hamper  our  lives.  Thoreau,  in 
his  half  whimsical  fashion,  gives  expression  to  the 
thought  in  Walden :  "I  see  young  men,  my 
townsmen,  whose  misfortune  it  is  to  have  inherited 
farms,  houses,  barns,  cattle,  and  farming  tools  ;  for 
these  are  more  easily  acquired  than  got  rid  of. 
Better  if  they  had  been  born  in  the  open  pasture 


THE  NEW   SOCIAL   IDEAL  213 

and  suckled  by  a  wolf,  that  they  might  have  seen 
with  clearer  eyes  what  field  they  were  called  to 
labor  in.  *******  How  many  a  poor 
immortal  soul  have  I  met  well  nigh  crushed  and 
smothered  under  its  load,  creeping  down  the  road 
of  life,  pushing  before  it  a  barn  seventy-five  feet  by 
forty,  its  Augean  stables  never  cleansed,  and  one 
hundred  acres  of  land,  tillage,  mowing,  pasture, 
and  wood-lot !  The  portionless  who  struggle  with 
no  such  unnecessary  inherited  encumbrances,  find 
it  labor  enough  to  subdue  and  cultivate  a  few 
cubic  feet  of  flesh." 
The  idea  is  not  all  a  jest : 

"Was  du  ererbt  von  deinen  Vfitern  hast, 
Erwirb  es,  um  es  zu  besitzen," 

we  are  told  in  Faust ;  and  the  history  of  the 
sons  of  wealthy  men  is  a  sufficient  illustration  of  the 
truth.  To  command  and  use  the  opportunities  of 
civilization  which  we  have  inherited  from  the  past 
we  must  win  them  anew. 

Thus  the  problem  of  education  becomes  increas- 
ingly more  difficult.  To  be  educated  as  well  as  the 
men  of  some  past  epoch  is  to  be  insufficiently 
trained  for  the  needs  of  to-day.  Better  a  return  to 
barbarism  than  to  be  burdened  with  a  vast  institu- 
tional, material,  and  intellectual  equipment  of  civ- 
ilization which  we  are  unable  to  master  and  use. 
The  question  is,   whether  the  biological  basis  of 


214  THE   NEW   SOCIAL   IDEAL 

human  existence  is  a  sufficient  foundation  for  the 
vast  superstructure  of  life,  whether  the  brain  is 
capable  of  grappling  with  the  increasingly  difficult 
problem  of  existence.  The  failure  of  a  small  farmer 
in  England  is  connected  with  the  opening  up  of 
vast  wheat-raising  tracts  in  Argentine  Republic. 
The  wages  of  a  factory  girl  in  a  small  town  in 
Massachusetts  are  connected  with  the  advance  of 
Russia  in  northern  China.  The  relations  are  becom- 
ing too  intricate,  the  factors  too  highly  complicated. 
The  effort  of  legislation  to  deal  with  the  problem  is 
a  kind  of  pitiful  empirical  tinkering  not  unlike  the 
attempt  to  build  a  dam  across  a  quickening  torrent. 
Industrial  distress  is  lightly  attributed  to  the  pre- 
dominance of  a  political  party,  or  the  accidents  of 
particular  legislation  ;  but  the  causes  are  as  far- 
reaching  as  the  intricate  relations  of  modern  life. 
It  is  obviously  impossible  to  legislate  ourselves 
into  permanent  prosperity,  when  the  causes  of  dis- 
tress are  much  deeper  than  any  legislation.  The 
condition  of  modern  civilization  is  only  too  much 
like  that  of  Florence  as  Dante  describes  her : 

'•  How  oft,  within  the  time  of  thy  remembrance, 

Laws,  moneys,  ofQces  and  usages 

Hast  thou  remodelled,  and  renewed  thy  members  ? 
And  if  thou  mind  thee  well,  and  see  the  light. 

Thou  shalt  behold  thyself  like  a  sick  woman, 

Who  cannot  find  repose  upon  her  down, 
But  by  her  tossing  wardeth  off  her  pain." 


THE   NEW   SOCIAL   IDEAL  215 

As  onr  ideal  and  problem  are  unprecedented,  so 
must  be  the  answer.  Old  battle  cries  fail  to  meet 
new  issues.  The  radicalism  of  yesterday  is  the 
conservatism  of  to-day,  and  the  heresy  of  to-day  is 
the  orthodoxy  of  to-morrow.  To  imagine  that  a 
solution  which  met  a  past  difficulty  must  be  ade- 
quate to  the  new  issue  is  to  obscure  the  gravity  of 
the  problem.  A  particular  principle  of  financial 
or  industrial  legislation,  once  championed  as  the 
standard  of  liberty,  may  become  a  mere  shib- 
boleth, superstitious  reverence  for  which  hinders 
progress. 

The  battle-cry  of  yesterday  in  the  most  advanced 
nations  of  the  world  was  political  democracy.  The 
institutions  which  have  been  fought  out  along  the 
line  of  progress  hitherto  have  been  in  that  sphere, 
and  the  significance  of  the  movement  is  yet  unex- 
hausted. But  it  is  evident  that  the  realization  in 
any  measure  of  the  ideal  that  dominates  the  modern 
spirit  cannot  be  achieved  through  political  reforms 
alone.  The  storm  center  in  the  movement  of  the 
new  democracy  is  increasingly  in  the  sphere  of 
social  relations,  and  in  the  struggle  toward  greater 
industrial  freedom.  Is  not,  therefore,  the  insist- 
ence upon  particular  measures  of  political  democ- 
racy as  the  cure  for  all  our  ills,  a  distinct  injury, 
through  obscuring  the  nature  of  the  problem,  and 
blinding  us  to  the  progress  of  events  ?    There  was 


216  THE   NEW   SOCIAL  IDEAL 

a  time  when  the  extension  of  political  suffrage  was 
the  movement  of  freedom.  To-day  we  must  recog- 
nize that  political  enfranchisement  may  co-exist 
with  social  and  industrial  slavery.  To  suppose 
that  the  extension  of  the  ballot  will  cure  all  our 
diseases  is  to  be  lulled  into  a  false  sense  of  security, 
as  if  one  should  go  to  sleep  over  the  crater  of  a  live 
volcano.  There  was  a  time  when  the  right  of  free 
speech  was  the  cry  of  progress  ;  to-day  it  may  be 
used  as  a  shibboleth  to  permit  the  lawless  use  of 
power  by  irresponsible  and  criminal  newspapers. 
To  expect  a  single  series  of  political  movements  to 
meet  all  the  evils  of  society  is  to  place  oneself 
beside  the  ignorant  prey  of  the  quack,  who  trusts 
a  single  nostrum  to  cure  all  diseases.  Increasing 
industrial  freedom  must  follow  the  attainment  of 
political  freedom.  The  distribution  of  the  measure- 
less production  that  results  from  modern  methods 
and  machinery,  the  bringing  together  of  land  and 
labor,  tools  and  workmen,  the  relation  of  the  dif- 
ferent factors  in  production  and  distribution,  must 
not  be  left  to  chance  and  the  blind  action  of  natural 
causes.  When  a  great  country  stagnates  with 
"over-production,"  while  people  freeze  and  starve 
in  the  cities,  something  is  wrong ;  and  the  wrong 
is  one  that  the  human  will  and  intellect  can  remedy, 
if  it  but  consecrate  itself  to  the  task. 
It  is  sad  to  see  how  rare  is  a  truly  cosmopolitan 


THE   NEW    SOCIAL  IDEAL  217 

and  human  view  of  the  problem.  The  spirit  of 
competition,  which  has  its  place  in  the  struggle  of 
life,  is  in  danger  of  becoming  a  virulent  disease 
which  blinds  us  to  the  unity  of  the  spiritual  world. 
The  effort  of  one  nation  to  aggrandise  itself  at  the 
expense  of  others  may  give  a  superficial  prosperity, 
but  is  opposed  to  the  deeper  interests  of  its  life. 
The  modern  industrial  problems  are  universal  over 
the  human  world,  and  they  are  to  be  solved  by  one 
people  only  when  they  are  answered  to  some  extent 
for  all.  Were  it  possible  to  build  a  Chinese  wall 
around  one  nation,  and  isolate  it  industrially  from 
the  rest,  the  result  would  be,  not  only  a  cowardly 
abdication  of  the  leadership  each  owes  the  others, 
but  an  invitation  to  the  dwarfing  egotism  and  stag- 
nation of  China — as  though  a  great  nation  were  to 
take  the  veil  of  monastic  isolation. 

When  we  study  the  ancient  Greek  world  we 
think  with  contempt  of  the  narrowness  of  its  pa- 
triotism. Each  city  sought  to  advance  itself  at  the 
expense  of  its  neighbors.  Patriotic  as  far  as  his 
city  was  concerned,  the  Greek  was  unconscious  of 
a  larger  unity  of  life.  Only  one  man  ever  discov- 
ered the  idea  of  a  Greek  nation ;  and  Pericles 
inevitably  failed  because  he  could  lead  only  a  few 
friends  to  understand  his  meaning.  Greece  went 
down  because  of  the  narrow  selfishness  of  her  cities. 
We  realize  that  the  true  interest  of  any  city  cannot 


218  THE  NEW   SOCIAL   IDEAL 

be  obtained  by  blindly  struggling  for  itself  against 
all  others ;  we  have  attained  the  national  idea.  But 
quite  generally  we  fail  to  see  that  what  was  true  of 
the  relations  of  cities  in  ancient  Greece  is  true  of 
the  relations  of  nations  to-day.  The  patriotism 
that  would  advance  one  nation  at  the  expense  of 
others  is  only  another  form  of  sellishness,  sure  to 
meet  the  punishment  its  blindness  deserves.  Only 
a  cosmopolitanism  as  broad  as  humanity  is  capable 
of  realizing  the  modern  ideal. 

The  industrial  questions  rest  back  upon  some- 
thing still  more  fundamental — the  problem  of  social 
relations.  While  the  modern  ideal  leads  toward 
greater  social  integration,  many  new  conditions  of 
activity  accentuate  the  difficulties  in  the  path  of 
its  attainment.  Modern  industrial  methods  in- 
crease temporarily  social  segregation.  Rich  and 
poor,  cultured  and  ignorant,  tend  to  become  more 
widely  separated.  In  any  large  city  residence  dis- 
tricts are  defined  with  increasing  reference  to  class 
distinctions.  The  districts  of  wealth  and  culture 
are  far  removed  from  the  quarters  of  poverty  and 
ignorance.  The  rapid  growth  of  the  suburban 
system,  depopulating  the  cities  of  the  bstter  middle 
class,  leaves  the  wretches  heaped  together  in  tene- 
ment districts  in  undisturbed  sordidness.  Even 
the  measure  of  social  intercourse  involved  in  the 
kindly  offices  of  charity  tends  to  pass  away,  as 


THE   NEW   SOCIAL  IDEAL  219 

social  and  personal  helpfulness  is  more  and  more 
delegated  to  charity  organizations  ;  with  an  im- 
mense increase  in  economy  and  justice  it  is  true, 
but  with  a  great  loss  of  vital  social  relationship. 
Even  in  the  religious  life  this  social  segregation  is 
too  evident  to  require  discussion. 

This  social  problem  lies  behind  the  ferment  in 
the  modern  industrial  world,  and  there  is  no  hope 
of  permanently  meeting  the  crisis  in  the  latter 
sphere  unless  the  needs  in  the  former  can  be  an- 
swered. The  separation  of  classes  in  all  phases  of 
life  is  a  curse  to  high  and  low  alike.  Tolstoi  has 
always  insisted  that  unjust  extremes  of  poverty 
and  wealth  injure  both  rich  and  poor,  and  he  is 
profoundly  right.  Nothing  is  more  deadening  to 
life  than  isolation  in  a  highly  differentiated  class. 
In  such  a  condition  we  are  victims  of  that  too  great 
specialization  which  hampers  the  range  of  our 
adaptability,  as  evidenced  in  the  plant  and  animal 
world,  as  well  as  in  the  human  sphere.  No  great 
realization  of  life  is  possible  which  does  not  spring 
from  the  heart  of  common  humanity.  When  liter- 
ature is  cultivated  by  a  narrow  class,  isolated  from 
the  broad  life  of  the  people,  it  is  devitalized.  It 
may  present  polished  conceits,  but  it  must  lack  the 
throbbing  life  that  pulsates  in  all  great  master- 
pieces. When  art  of  any  kind  does  not  embody  the 
life  and  answer  the  need  of  the  mass  of  the  people 


220  THE  NEW   SOCIAL   IDEAL 

it  is  emasculated.  Life  is  inevitably  barren  without 
a  deep  and  wide  social  contact  of  different  classes. 
At  the  same  time  there  must  be  fearless  and  con- 
secrated leadership.  It  is  said  that  democracy 
tends  toward  a  dead  level  of  the  average ;  and  there 
is  some  justice  in  the  accusation.  There  are  two 
opposing  principles  which  it  seems  difficult  to 
reconcile.  It  is  said,  one  must  be  in  line  with 
common  humanity  to  achieve  true  greatness  ;  and 
again,  that  one  must  fearlessly  follow  one's  own 
independent  convictions  unmoved  by  the  caprices 
of  the  mob,  and  if  one  stoop  to  flatter  it  one  is  lost. 
These  principles  seem  to  be  in  hopeless  opposition  ; 
but  the  contradiction  is  resolved  in  a  higher  unity. 

What  is  the  mob  ?  It  surges  through  the  streets 
from  the  chill  dawn  until  the  midnight ;  ever  chang- 
ing, yet  the  same.  Grey  with  toil,  gaudy  with 
artificial  adornments,  black  with  lust  and  murder, 
it  surges  on,  choking  the  streets  and  alleys,  but 
with  renewed  pulsations  of  its  vast  heart  sweeping 
them  clear  again.  Many-headed,  yet  with  one 
masterful  heart ;  stretching  out  its  innumerable 
members  in  an  inextricable  maze  of  seemingly  dis- 
torted actions,  yet  drawing  them  all  into  one  unity 
of  rest ;  a  chameleon  monster  with  as  many  hues 
and  aspects  as  the  day  and  night,  yet  with  one 
voice  that  mingles  them  together  in  one  vast, 
strident,  menacing,  sombre  roar — the  Mob ! 


THE   NEW    SOCIAL   IDEAL  221 

Yet  this  Mob  is  Humanity.  Each  member  of  it 
is  Man,  potentially  all  that  the  rest  have  expressed. 
With  earnest  striving,  with  tears  of  pity  and  ring- 
ing laughter  of  childish  joy,  with  a  miracle  of  love 
and  an  eternal  struggle  after  ideals  that  lift  steadily 
toward  the  image  of  God, — the  Mob  is  Humanity! 
It  can  be  stirred  to  blind  passion,  or  wakened  to 
love ;  degraded  to  madness,  or  transfigured  to 
heroism.  From  it  are  made  murderers  and  martyrs, 
slaves  and  saviors :  the  Moh  is  Humanity ! 

The  difference  lies  in  the  line  of  appeal.  When 
Shakespeare  appealed  to  the  London  mob  he  trans- 
figured it  into  humanity  ;  when  the  modern  sensa- 
tional newspaper  appeals  to  humanity  it  degrades 
humanity  into  the  mob.  Men  will  respond  to  what 
is  universally  human,  or  yield  to  selfish  passion. 
One  can  gain  power  with  the  mass  by  flattering  its 
blind  prejudice  or  by  appealing  to  what  is  funda- 
mental in  the  common  heart.  "One  touch  of  nature 
makes  the  whole  world  kin,"  whether  it  be  the 
nature  of  the  brute  or  of  the  spirit. 

Thus  the  social  unity  that  is  necessary  is  one 
consistent  with  independent  courage  and  fearless 
devotion  to  truth.  There  must  be  no  catering  to 
the  whims  and  caprices  of  the  mob,  but  an  appeal 
to  that  humanity  which  is  implicit  in  each  indi- 
vidual. Indeed,  one  of  the  two  principles  which 
seemed  so  opposed  is  impossible  without  the  other. 


222  THE   NEW   SOCIAL   IDEAL 

There  can  be  no  true  heroism,  no  independent 
greatness  which  does  not  spring  from  the  heart  of 
common  humanity  ;  and  there  can  be  no  true  social 
union  which  does  not  depend  upon  the  highest 
individuality,  the  most  independent  consecration 
to  truth. 

The  absence  of  the  one  quality  is  the  measure  of 
the  decay  of  the  other.  Instead  of  true  social 
union,  and  fearless  and  consecrated  personality 
and  leadership,  we  have  too  often  the  selfish  and 
whimsical  mob,  and  the  flattering  demagogue,  the 
lawless  and  irresponsible  use  of  power  in  the  news- 
paper. 

Thus  the  evolution  of  social  solidarity  is  the 
necessary  complement  of  the  development  of  per- 
sonal life.  There  is  no  true  good  for  one  that  is 
not  good  for  all.  If  I  share  my  loaf  of  bread  with 
my  neighbor  I  have  half  a  loaf  left,  but  the  love 
that  prompted  the  division  grows  by  the  process. 
Every  intellectual  advance  attained  by  one  man  is 
an  added  intellectual  power  to  all  others.  The 
interests  of  the  spiritual  world  are  common,  for 
life  is  possible  to  one  only  through  the  integration 
of  his  life  with  all.  Intellectual  realization  of  one's 
self  consists  in  the  widening  of  the  relation  of  the 
individual  to  the  universe.  Emotional  realization  of 
life  means  the  unity  of  each  with  all  in  love,  through 
the  medium  of  a   union  with    other   individuals. 


THE   NEW   SOCIAL   IDEAL  223 

Volitional  realization  of  one's  self  lies  in  action 
that  expresses  character,  and  is  helpful  to  all. 
Giordano  Bruno  understood  it  when  he  said : 
"Intelligence  therefore  is  perfected,  not  in  one,  in 
another,  or  in  many,  but  in  all."  And  Goethe,  the 
apostle  of  self-culture,  knew  that  man  is  man  only 
in  union  with  humanity,  for  he  could  say  sub- 
limely :  "If  now,  during  our  own  lifetime,  we  see 
that  performed  by  others,  to  which  we  ourselves 
felt  an  earlier  call,  but  which  we  had  been  obliged 
to  give  up,  with  much  besides  :  then  the  beautiful 
feeling  enters  the  mind,  that  only  mankind  together 
is  the  true  man,  and  that  the  individual  can  be  joy- 
ous and  happy  only  when  he  has  the  courage  to 
feel  himself  in  the  whole." 

Individual  human  beings  are  like  members  of  a 
vast  orchestra  engaged  in  the  creation  of  the  sub- 
lime music  of  humanity.  Each  must  express  his 
own  ideal  through  the  instrument  he  has  chosen. 
But  unless  the  tones  he  produces  are  in  unison 
with  the  rest,  they  are  not  music  but  discordant 
sounds  :  in  harmony  with  the  creative  effort  of  all, 
they  are  indispensable  elements  in  the  symphony 
of  life. 


X. 

THE  RELIGION  OF  HUMANITY 


IF  it  be  the  type  of  life  which  we  seek,  and  our 
social  attitude  as  individuals,  that  are  behind 
the  difficulties  upon  the  surface  of  our  civiliza- 
tion, it  is  evident  that  our  problem  is  fundamen- 
tally ethical  and  religious,  widely  as  that  fact  is 
ignored.  The  need  is  for  a  great  religious  awaken- 
ing, comparable  to  that  transformation  of  the  world 
which  Christianity  accomplished  in  the  decaying 
Greco-Roman  epoch.  Yet  if  the  need  is  funda- 
mentally like  that  of  the  ancient  world,  the  condi- 
tions to  be  met  are  widely  different.  Too  much  is 
often  made  of  the  similarities  between  that 
epoch  and  our  own,  for  many  of  them  are 
rather  superficial  than  indicative  of  the  essential 
character  of  life.  Ancient  institutions  were  ethnic 
in  character, — based,  each  of  them,  upon  a  clearly 
developed  race  type.  In  the  decline  of  the  Greco- 
Roman  world  the  virility  of  this  basis  was  largely 
exhausted.  Modern  civilization  rests  back  upon 
the  most  amazing  union  of  different  races  which 
the  world  has  seen  ;  and  in  our  own  land  is  repeated 
this  heterogeneous  intermingling  of  peoples,  the 
most  of  which  are  still  in  their  virile  youth.  The 
declining  ancient  world  was  filled  with  the  despair 
of  old  age ;  while  the  pessimism  that  prevails 
among  ourselves  is  rather  the  picturesque  pessimism 


228  THE   RELIGION   OF   HUMANITY 

of  youth  which  finds  sentimental  satisfaction  in 
its  own  melancholy.  Our  world  is  full  of  youth, 
energy  and  strength ;  while  the  declining  ancient 
world  was  filled  with  voluntary  idleness,  indul- 
gence and  despair. 

At  the  same  time  it  cannot  be  denied  that  with 
us,  as  with  the  decaying  Roman  empire,  the  old 
faith  and  inspiration  of  life  has  lost,  not  only  its 
authority,  but  something  of  its  vital  hold  upon  us. 
As  a  result  we  see  the  selfishness,  the  opposition 
to  social  aims  and  human  welfare,  the  industrial 
disturbances  and  social  class  isolation  which  fur- 
nish the  surface  parallels  between  our  world  and 
decaying  Rome. 

The  striking  similarities,  and  still  greater  and 
deeper  differences  between  the  ancient  world  and 
our  own,  furnish  the  clue  to  the  type  of  force 
needed  in  the  regeneration  of  our  life.  The  new 
birth  is  hardly  to  be  expected  from  any  mere 
rehabilitation  of  past  authority  and  tradition. 
There  is  as  little  reason  to  expect  the  permanent 
answer  to  all  needs  of  life  in  a  particular  religious 
creed  or  institution  as  in  a  specific  political  move- 
ment. The  danger  of  obscuring  new  issues  by  reit- 
erating old  battle  cries  is  as  great  in  the  one 
sphere  as  in  the  other.  The  mere  statement  again 
of  teachings  which  were  born  of  the  needs  of  a 
very  different  world  from  ours,  and  which  answered 


THE  RELIGION   OF   HUMANITY  229 

its  problems,  while  instructive  and  helpful,  can 
hardly  be  regarded  as  adequate  to  our  issues.  If 
new  truths  are  often  merely  a  restatement  of  old 
truths  in  forms  to  meet  the  needs  of  a  new  world, 
it  is  important  to  recognize  that  the  new  form  is 
what  gives  the  old  truth  its  vitality  and  useful- 
ness. Any  gospel  adequate  to  meet  the  issues  of  a 
new  age  must  be  born  to  meet  those  issues ;  and 
the  very  characteristics  which  fitted  primitive 
Christianity  to  answer  supremely  the  needs  of  the 
old  and  dying  Greco-Roman  world,  unfit  the  same 
form  of  teaching  to  meet,  alone  and  without  re- 
statement, the  conditions  of  our  young  and  different 
civilization. 

The  doctrine  of  escape  out  of  the  failure  of  this 
world  into  the  compensation  of  another,  while  in 
opposition  to  the  gospel  of  culture  and  action 
which  had  ruled  in  the  best  period  of  ancient  civili- 
zation, fitted  Christianity  singularly  to  meet  the 
needs  of  the  decaying  Greco-Roman  world. 
Spreading  among  the  poor  and  oppressed  with 
the  precious  benison  of  peace  and  consolation,  it 
won  its  way  steadily  toward  the  surface  with  the 
decline  of  the  ideals  which  had  ruled  in  ancient 
life. 

But  no  particular  type  of  teaching  can  be  equally 
adapted  to  all  epochs.  If  it  were,  it  would  be  so 
generic  and  indefinite  as  to  be  of  little  value.     Its 


230  THE  RELIGION  OP  HTTMANITT 

strength  lies,  not  in  certain  vague  universalities, 
but  in  the  concrete  gospel  that  springs  in  imme- 
diate answer  to  the  needs  of  its  specific  audience. 
Thus  the  very  qualities  which  give  it  timely 
strength  determine  its  limitations ;  and  the  need 
of  a  continual  restatement  of  the  eternal  truths  is 
evident.  Many  religious  organizations  of  the 
present  time,  by  their  unceasing  insistance  upon 
authority  and  tradition  have  their  faces  turned 
toward  the  past,  and  must  depend  upon  the  reit- 
eration of  unimportant  generalities,  or  waste  their 
energies  in  a  useless  effort  to  rehabilitate  a  partic- 
ular phase  of  historical  tradition ;  while  the  first 
condition  of  an  adequate  facing  of  the  new  issues 
consists  in  a  recognition  of  the  untried  character 
of  the  problems  with  which  we  must  deal. 

The  over-ritualistic  tendencies  of  great  estab- 
lished churches  are  evident  throughout  the  world. 
When  men  reach  a  certain  state  of  wealth  and 
ease  they  wish  their  religion  performed  for  them 
vicariously  as  a  kind  of  propitiation  of  the  universe. 
Such  so-called  religion  is  powerless  to  meet,  as  it 
is  to  understand,  the  crisis  of  to-day.  Indeed  it  is 
a  powerful  obstacle  to  that  deeper  human  union 
which  is  the  great  need  of  our  time.  Not  in  great 
churchly  establishments,  not  in  the  formal  wor- 
ship detached  from  daily  life,  not  in  inherited 
creeds  and  formulae  lies  the  ethical  inspiration  for 


THE   RELIGION   OF   HUMANITY  231 

to-morrow.  The  new  gospel  must  be  one  of  posi- 
tive culture  and  progress.  The  need  is  not  merely 
to  have  faith  in  a  possible  future  world,  but  to 
have  our  eyes  unsealed  to  the  infinite  meaning  of 
the  world  in  which  we  live  ;  to  replace  the  doctrine 
of  asceticism  and  unreasoning  self-sacrifice  with  a 
gospel  of  nobler  self-realization  in  harmony  with 
all  others,  of  greater  industrial  justice  and  higher 
social  unity.  The  new  human  brotherhood  must 
be  not  only  in  the  spiritual  life,  but  in  all  the 
actions  and  interests  of  the  daily  world.  In  those 
splendid  ideals,  old  as  the  inspirations  of  the  heart, 
and  new  as  the  dew  upon  to-day's  grass,  lies  the 
answer  for  to-day  and  the  hope  for  tomorrow. 

The  larger  area  of  the  history  of  religion  is  full 
of  pathos.  It  has  required  a  long  time  for  man  to 
take  the  creations  of  his  own  spirit  back  into  the 
heart  that  gave  them  birth.  How  much  of  primi- 
tive life  seems  to  have  been  filled  with  a  shivering 
terror  of  the  vague  unknown.  Fear  is  always  con- 
nected with  the  unknown  ;  and  a  large  degree  of 
culture  is  necessary  to  lift  man  beyond  it.  There 
is  a  point  in  the  development  of  the  individual 
where  one  passes  the  limits  within  which  fear  is 
possible.  It  is  when  one  has  come  to  face  steadily 
the  blackest  depths,  so  that  there  is  no  longer  a 
worst  that  is  unknown.  Something  comparable  to 
this  comes  in  the  culture  of  the  race.     Primitive 


232  THE   RELIGION   OF   HUMANITY 

man  was  overpowered  by  creations  of  liis  own  im- 
agination. The  unknown  powers  behind  the  activ- 
ities of  nature,  the  menacing  spirits  of  the  dead, 
the  vast  man-like  beings  that  had  to  be  propitiated 
— all  filled  him  with  terror.  He  offered  sacrifices 
to  them,  builded  enormous  statues  to  gratify  them, 
and  lived  under  the  perpetual  fear  of  their  myster- 
ious power. 

There  was  less  of  this  in  the  sunny  Greek  world. 
There  men  were  content  with  the  present,  the  gods 
were  humanized  into  familiar  companions,  but  little 
raised  above  the  level  of  the  earthly  world.  The 
intense  occupation  with  pleasure  and  action  made 
Hades — the  unseen  world — seem  so  unreal  that  it 
gave  but  a  vague  shudder  as  one  occasionally 
thought  of  it. 

In  the  centuries  of  mediaeval  Christianity  arose 
again  the  pre-occupation  with  the  invisible  world. 
And  although  upon  a  plane  far  above  that  of  prim- 
itive culture,  and  involving  human  love  and  ten- 
derness, religion  still  rested  upon  life  like  a  vast 
gloom  that  made  the  figures  and  actions  of  the 
world  seem  phantoms  moving  in  a  white  mist,  the 
real  world  lying  beyond.  Over  the  doors  of  the 
great  churches  was  carved  hell  or  a  terrible  Judg- 
ment day.  From  every  corner  lowered  hideous 
gargoyles  and  devils — grim  figures  to  frighten  men 
into  paradise.     The  Divine  seemed   so  vast  and 


THE  RELIGION   OF  HUMANITY  233 

overpowering  that  one  after  another  mediating 
powers  were  developed  to  propitiate  the  unknown. 
Between  God  and  man  was  Christ ;  but  he  became 
the  terror-inspiring  judge  of  the  world,  and  Mary, 
the  tender  human  mother  of  God,  was  prayed  to 
intervene.  In  her  character  as  queen  of  heaven 
she  too  became  awe-inspiring,  and  her  mediation 
must  be  obtained  by  the  more  human  saints.  And 
so  the  process  went  on,  man  trembling  in  terror  be- 
fore the  conceptions  of  his  own  spirit,  invested 
with  power  and  lifted  to  the  skies.  The  great 
cathedrals  of  the  middle  ages  express  no  more  the 
aspirations  of  the  spirit  than  they  do  the  slavery  and 
fear  of  the  multitudes  who  could  construct  such 
temples  while  they  lived  in  hovels  of  sordid  misery. 

But  the  religion  of  fear  is  passing.  Man  is  com- 
ing to  realize  that  the  heights  and  depths  of  the 
universe  are  within  his  own  soul.  There  is  no 
attribute  which  he  has  seen  in  God,  and  no  black- 
ness of  hell,  which  is  not  a  possibility  of  his  own 
spirit : 

"  I  sent  ray  Soul  through  the  Invisible, 
Some  letter  of  that  After-life  to  spell  ; 

And  by  and  by  my  Soul  return'd  to  me. 
And  answer'd  '  I  myself  am  Heav'n  and  Heir : 

Heav'n  but  the  Vision  of  fulflU'd  Desire, 
And  Hell  the  Shadow  from  a  Soul  on  fire 

Cast  on  the  Darkness  into  which  Ourselves, 
So  late  emcrg'd  fronj,  shall  so  soon  expire." 


234  THE   RELIGION   OF   HUMANITY 

Those  who  have  faced  the  unknown  tremble  no 
more.  In  so  far  as  man  has  mastered  his  own 
imaginings,  in  so  far  as  he  has  taken  up  into  him- 
self the  creations  of  his  spirit,  he  has  recognized 
the  absolute  significance  of  his  own  life,  he  has 
humanized  religion,  and  has  realized  that  the  o'er- 
brooding  Power,  in  whom  he  "lives  and  moves  and 
has  his  being,"  is  one  with  the  aspirations  and 
love  of  his  heart. 

THE  PASSING  OF  ZEUS. 

The  Egyptian  chiselled  out  dumb,  granite  gods, 
Vague  monsters,  brute  and  human,  whose  vast  size 
O'er-powered  their  maker,  man,  and  cast  him  down 
In  abject  terror  at  their  moveless  feet. 

The  Greek  with  free  and  cheerful  hymn  of  praise 

Cai-ved  human  gods,  wise,  sweet  and  beautiful, 

The  breathing  images  of  earthly  thought. 

Made  with  the  calm  restraint  of  perfect  art, 

"Which  knows  that  greatness  is  not  in  unformed. 

Colossal  shapes,  but  in  the  clear  portrayal 

Of  dreams  that  touch  man's  heart  with  heavenly  fire. 

Man  carves  no  longer  gods  of  speechless  stone— 
The  lesson  of  the  ages  has  been  learned  : 
Veiled  Isis,  mighty  Memnon,  Horus,  and 
Those  fair  Greek  gods,  eternal  in  their  youth — 
Great  Zeus,  wise  virgin  Pallas,  Aphrodite, 
Apollo  golden-haired— these  dwell  unseen 
Within  the  temple  of  the  human  heart, — 
The  temple  of  the  ages,  vast,  mysterious. 
The  shrine  of  all  the  gods  to  whom  the  prayers 
Of  men  in  epochs  numberless  have  risen. 


THE  RELIGION  OF  HUMANITY  235 

Man  stands  to-day  serene  and  fearless,  tree, 
No  longer  dominated  by  the  forms 
That  body  forth  his  own  imaginings, 
Knowing  the  meaning  and  the  destiny 
Of  all  the  ages  lies  within  his  souL 

Thns  religion  tends  to  become  more  intimatelv 
personal  with  every  step  of  progress.  And  tliis 
process  is  paralleled  by  another :  as  the  progressive 
evolution  of  the  individual  is  accompanied  by  in- 
creasing social  integration,  so  the  development  of 
religion  rende""8  it  Bt  once  more  intimately  personal 
and  more  broadly  human.  These  two  principles 
are  present  everywhere  in  the  human  world,  and 
B^e  increasingly  resolved  into  a  higher  unity.  That 
which  is  most  intimately  personal  is  most  uni- 
versally human  ;  and  the  religion  which  consists  in 
the  inner  faith  and  attitude  of  the  individual  is 
always  that  which  unites  one  with  all  in  pursuit  of 
the  high  aims  of  life.  A  great  man  has  said  :  "Of 
all  the  truths  of  the  faith  it  is  only  the  communion 
of  the  saints  that  is  left. ' '  The  one  permanent  basis 
of  the  spiritual  life  is  that  brotherhood  of  souls, 
each  striving  earnestly  toward  the  largest  life,  and 
each  in  loving  union  with  all.  The  religion  of 
humanity  is  the  religion  of  the  individual  soul. 

Life  itself  is  becoming  a  religion  to-day.  We 
are  learning  that  nothing  is  more  sacred  than  a 
human  being ;  and  that  tlie  most  tragic,  pathetic 


236  THE  RELIGION   OF   HUMANITY 

or  exalted  motives  are  those  drawn  from  the 
universal,  yet  intimately  personal  phases  of  daily 
experience.  Wordsworth  felt  the  dim  presence  of 
the  new  inspiration,  and  stammered  it  haltingly  in 
the  most  exquisite  of  his  unequal  works.  Carlyle 
lived  under  its  brooding  presence,  but  incapable 
of  voicing  its  positive  message  except  in  fragments, 
could  only  storm  against  its  enemies.  Shelley  was 
the  singer  of  its  subtlety,  Emerson  the  prophet  of 
its  exalted  spirituality,  Goethe  the  expression  of 
its  masterful  self-affirmation,  Browning  the  seer  of 
its  exultant  love  and  joy.  In  spite  of  the  night  of 
superstition  and  the  weight  of  obsolete  rituals,  in 
spite  of  the  vain  effort  to  rehabilitate  past  creeds 
and  reinstate  a  traditional  authority,  the  religion 
of  humanity  takes  wider  possession  of  the  human 
spirit.  Above  the  folly  of  narrow  selfishness  and 
the  blind  struggle  for  materialistic  ends  it  lifts  us 
steadily  toward  the  larger  life  of  to-morrow. 

The  time  is  ripe  for  a  new  prophet,  who  shall 
call  the  world  back  to  the  simple  realities  of  human 
life.  The  awaited  teacher  should  found  no  order 
and  establish  no  sect.  It  is  not  the  multiplication 
of  institutions  that  is  needed,  but  the  consecration 
of  individuals.  He  must  have  the  reserve  of  wis- 
dom ;  he  must  forego  authority  and  disclaim 
unusual  election.  He  must  find  the  ideal  by 
transfiguring  the  commonplace ;  he  must  see  and 


THE  EELIGION   OF   HUMANITY  237 

teach  the  divinity  of  common  things.  He  should 
live  in  the  world,  and  yet  maintain  a  perfect  conse- 
cration to  an  ideal  of  simplicity,  spirituality  and 
personal  helpfulness.  He  should  call  men  away 
from  the  senseless  rush  for  luxury,  fashion,  dissi- 
pation ;  and  turn  them  to  the  things  of  the  spirit — 
personal  love,  tliought,  beauty,  immediate  helpful- 
ness. It  is  not  a  new  gospel  that  is  needed,  but 
the  gospel  anew. 

The  shining  of  every  star  in  the  vast  of  heaven 
is  brooded  over  with  mystery.  The  growing  of 
every  blade  of  grass  is  instinct  with  miracle.  The 
eternal  sanctities  are  not  in  veiled  shrines  or 
hoarded  relics,  but  in  consecrated  action,  in  the 
love  of  women  and  the  hearts  of  children.  We 
grope  in  the  dark  for  Him,  and  "He  is  not  far 
from  every  one  of  us."  The  religions  of  the  ages 
are  but  the  prophecy  of  the  new  humanity  ;  the 
burden  of  all  the  promises  is  the  fresh  revelation 
of  life. 

The  message  of  all  the  religions  is  at  heart  the 
same :  the  infinite  and  eternal  meaning  of  human 
life.  It  rings  in  the  noble  hymns  of  the  Aryas ; 
Zoroaster  dreamed  it  in  history's  remote  dawn. 
Pitying  Buddha  preached  it  to  the  despondent 
orient ;  Christ  uttered  it  upon  the  mountain  and 
by  the  sea  of  Galilee ;  Paul  carried  it  to  Greece 
and  Rome.     It  was  the  meditation  of  Mohammed 


238  THE   RELIGION   OF   HUMANITY 

in  the  wilderness,  the  cry  that  Savonarola  reiterated 
to  the  amazed  Florentines.  It  brooded  in  the  winged 
thought  of  Plato,  and  sang  in  the  exultant  Paradiso 
of  Dante :  the  infinite  significance  of  each  human 
soul. 

Never  has  life  been  so  worth  the  living  as  it  is 
to-day.  Its  opportunities  and  its  responsibilities 
are  alike  vaster  than  hitherto.  A  brave  soul  wel- 
comes one  with  the  other.  We  should  meet  life 
with  something  of  the  splendid  laughter  that 
sounds  in  the  voices  of  Wagner's  Siegfrieds  and 
Brynhilds.  It  is  more  constant,  more  daily  conse- 
cration that  we  must  have.  The  world  draws  us 
away,  immediate  necessities  paralyze  our  vision 
and  destroy  our  perspective :  we  must  retire  into 
the  soul,  and  listen  to  the  quiet  voice  that  forever 
speaks  the  eternal  lessons.  To  come  back  to  the 
great  realities  of  life,  and  live  in  their  constant 
presence — this  is  genius. 

One  rises  in  the  dark  before  the  morning,  and 
goes  down  to  the  shore.  One  looks  out  upon  the 
water  with  that  grey  chill  upon  the  heart  which 
makes  the  beginning  of  the  day  the  most  homeless 
hour  of  all.  But  in  an  instant  the  grey  is  warmed 
with  a  faint  tinge  of  red.  The  rays  of  light,  like 
the  eternally  fresh  fingers  of  Aurora,  stretch  them- 
selves over  the  eastern  sky.  Behind,  the  mountain 
peak  glows  with  rosy  light,  inconceivably  beautiful. 


THE  RELIGION  OF  HUMANITY  239 

Steadily,  moment  by  moment,  li^ht  deepens  into 
light ;  the  rosy  colors  blend  into  gold ;  and  soon 
day  in  all  its  splendid  fulness  shines  masterfully 
upon  us. 

To  some  of  us  our  epoch  seems  the  dark  stagna- 
tion of  the  night.  But  the  very  chill  of  the  shadow 
is  the  prophecy  of  the  day  ;  and  to  those  who  are 
awake  the  rosy  light  is  unmistakable ;  their  work 
has  begun,  for  a  new  day  has  dawned. 


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